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THE 

ORIGINAL 



AND 



PRESENT STATE OF MAN, 

BRIEFLY CONSIDERED; 



WHEREIN IS SHEWN, 

THE NATURE OF HIS FALL, AND THE NECESSITY, MEANS, AND MANNER 

OF HIS RESTORATION, THROUGH THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST, AND 

THE SENSIBLE OPERATION OF THAT DIVINE PRINCIPLE OF 

GRACE AND TRUTH, HELD FORTH TO THE WORLD 

BY THE 

PEOPLE CALLED aUAKERS, 

TO WHICH ARE ADDED, 

SOME REMARKS ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION, THE 
TURES, WORSHIP, AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 



BY JOSEPH PHIPPS. 

ii 



We both labour, and suffer reproach, because We trust in the 
living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that 
believe. 1 Tim. iv. 10. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY BENJAMIN & THOMAS KITE 

NO. 20 ? NORTH THIRD STREET. 
J. R. A. SKERRETT, PRINTER, 

1818. 




3 %7's 






/ 



THE 

ORIGINAL AND PRESENT STATE 

OP 



M A N, &c. 



CHAP, I. 

1. Man was originally created in parity, and in a 
State of due Order and Rectitude. 2. He was in- 
spired with a sense of his duty ; and 3 and 4, im- 
powered to perforin it, 5. Being tempted, lie laps- 
ed from his proper guard, the preserving power 
of God, into Sin. 6. He fell from the image of 
the Heavenly, into the image of the Earthly. 
How unlawful Self rose in him. 7. That he really 
suffered death in Spirit, in the Day of his trans- 
gression. What the Life and Death of the Soul 
are. 

1. In the beginning God created all things 
good. Inherently and immutably good himself, 
every production of his must necessarily be so, 
according to the several kinds wherein he cre- 
ated them. As man was wholly made by him, 
he must have been made wholly good; his na- 
ture clear of all impurity, and free from all de- 
fect and disorder. His faculties were not im- 
perfect, but limited to their proper sphere, and 
every part of his composition constituted in its 



2 

due rectitude ; the body placed in subservience 
to his rational spirit, or soul, as to the more no- 
ble and excellent, and therefore the superior 
part, made for immortality, and in subjection 
only to the guidance of its Creator. 

2. The human faculties, or powers of capa- 
city, must then be clear, unprejudiced, and fit 
to receive impressions, yet void of any but those 
of immediate sense. Man, merely as man, 
could not originally bring any real knowledge 
into the world with him. That must either be 
immediately communicated to him by his Ma- 
ker, or afterwards acquired by himself, through 
observation and experience. The latter re- 
quired time to effect ; and as it was requisite 
to his situation, that he should be immediately 
endued with such an understanding of himself, 
and his Creator, as related to his present duty, 
and affected his felicity, he certainly was, by 
divine wisdom and goodness, timely furnished 
with it. 

3. Man must not only then be supplied with 
a due degree of light and understanding, but he 
must also be impowered to act up to it, else his 
knowledge would have been afforded him in 
vain. Yet, though he certainly was thus im- 
powered, the sequel manifested he was placed 
in a state of probation, otherwise, he could never 
have been guilty of the least failure ; for his 
Maker being essentially and unchangeably 
good, must have fixed him in a state of immuta- 
ble virtue and goodness, had he determined to 
fix him at all. 

4. As the omniscient Creator most certainly 
foresaw what a subtle adversary man would 



have to encounter, lie has surely furnished him 
with means sufficient to discover his snares, and 
resist his assaults. If Satan was suffered to 
use his subtlety and influence to deceive him, 
doubtless he was not only warned, but also en- 
dued, with a sufficiency of divine light and influ- 
ence to withstand his attempts, as he kept duly 
upon his watch. 

Nothing but the divine nature can enable 
any intelligent creature to resist temptation, and 
act up to the divine will. If therefore any cre- 
ated being is required to keep up thereunto, it 
must be assisted by divine power so to do. 
God created man for a purpose of his own glo- 
ry. To glorify God, and to partake of his glo- 
ry, man must walk in obedience to his will. 
Man could neither infallibly know his will, nor 
constantly perform it, merely by the strength of 
his own faculties ; he must therefore, necessa- 
rily, have been assisted by the spirit of God, to 
enable him to perform his will, and so to obey 
him as to glorify him, aud enjoy a blessed in- 
heritance in him ; otherwise, the end of man's 
cyeation could not be answered. Hence it is 
concluded, the first man Adam was made a liv- 
ing soul by the inspiration of the second Adam, 
Christ, who is a quickening spirit ; for "That 
was not first which is spiritual, but that which 
is natural ; and afterward that which is spi- 
ritual." 3 That is, Adam was first created a 
natural man, and then rendered a spiritual one 
by the quickening power of the spirit of Christ, 

1 Cor. xv, 45, 46. 



4 

which is the true life, and proper element for 
immortal spirits to live and move in. 

Thus the parents of mankind, in their origi- 
nal uncorrupted state, being fit temples for the 
Holy Ghost to dwell in, were, as well as the 
sanctified in Christ afterwards, partakers of the 
divine nature, 1 by the internal quickening of 
divine life. The author of the book of wis- 
dom observes, that wisdom in all ages, and cer- 
tainly in the first and purest, entereth holy souls; 
which wisdom he describes to be the breath of 
the power of- God, a pure influence flowing 
from the glory of the Almighty, the brightness 
of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror 
of the power of God, and the image of his good- 
ness 2 . This clearly denotes the spirit of the 
eternal Son of God himself, and evidently con- 
curs with those parts of the New Testament 
which declare him to be, the power of God, and 
the wisdom of God, the true light, and life of 
men, the brightness of the Father's glory, and 
the image of the invisible God. 3 

It was undoubtedly in the light of this pure 
influence that Adam had such an intuitive dis- 
cerning of the creation, as Enabled him to give 
names to them according to their several na- 
tures. For we read, " The Lord God formed 
every beast of the field, and every fowl of the 
air, and brought them unto Adam, to see what 
he would call them ; and whatsoever Adam 
called every living creature, that was the name 
thereof." 4 

1 1 Pet. i. 4. 2 Wiscl. vii. 3 1 Cor. i. 24. Col. 5. 15. 
John. i. 4. 9. 2 Cor. iv. 4. 4 Gen. ii. 19. 



.. Under this celestial enduement, the sacred 
impression of the divine image conspicuously 
appeared in the first of mankind. " In the im- 
age of God created he them." 1 

5. Had man kept in faithful obedience to his 
heavenly guide, and rejected the efforts of the 
tempter, he might undoubtedly, in due time, 
have been advanced to a degree of establishment 
beyond all possibility of falling ; but not con- 
tinuing strictly upon his watch, and, contrary 
to the warning before given him, turning his at- 
tention towards the temptation, when alluringly 
presented, he slipped from his proper guard ; 
leaving hold of that spirit wherein his life and 
strength lay, he fell from it, and ail its advan- 
tages, out of the liberty of the sons of God, into 
the bondage of corruption : a sure introduction 
to misery. For as holiness and happiness are 
inseparably united, so sin and misery are indi- 
visibly connected. 

To suppose, that the Almighty author of all 
good, originally subjected roan under a moral 
necessity to transgress upon the appearance of 
temptation, is an imagination too injurious to 
the divine character to be admitted. Our first 
parents were unquestionably enabled by their 
Maker to abide in due watchfulness, which 
would have entitled them to preservation : their 
defection from which, was certainly not of him, 
but of themselves. Had their lapse been 
through his will, or intentional disposition of 
circumstances, so that it must inevitably fol- 
low, he could not consistently have sentenced 

1 Gen-i.2f. 
AS 



tliem to punishment for it ; because, in so doings 
they performed his will, which could not be a 
sin against him. 

A dangerous fondness to become knowing iu 
things hurtful, and no way necessary, seems to 
have had an early entrance into the human mind. 
"In the day ye eat, your eyes shall be opened, 
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and 
evil." x By the suggestion of this flattering false- 
hood, Eve was deceived. Knowing nothing 
but good, she might have remained happy ; but 
experiencing evil, she became otherwise. This 
knowledge is as opposite to that of the divine 
wisdom, as darkness is to light. It is certain 
the Omniscient knows both good and evil, but 
he knows the first by immutable possession and 
perfect enjoyment, and the last he beholds with 
abhorrence, in eternal opposition to, and infi- 
nite distance from the purity of his nature. 
With sinful man the case is reverse ; evil having 
immediate possession of him, and good being 
out of his reach, without divine mercy, he must 
be completely wretched. This is the necessary 
consequence of that boasted knowledge of the 
world, which men acquire by tasting the per- 
nicious and poisonous sweets of temptation. 

6. The consequences of this primary lapse 
were immediately affecting to the actual trans- 
gressors, and remotely to all their posterity. I. 
They lost the bright impression of the divine 
image, and the felicity attending it. Forfeiting 
the immediate indwelling and pure influence of 
God's Holy spirit, they lost that divine simili- 

i Gen. iii. 5 



tude, wherein they had enjoyed internal light, 
life, love, goodness, righteousness, holiness, and 
happiness. That omnipresent spirit of power, 
truth, and virtue, which in their original state 
had been their comforter, disunited from them 
through transgression, now became their accuser 
and convictor. 2. Lapsing from under due and 
constant subjection to the mind and spirit of his 
Creator, the will of man separated from the will 
of God, and became self-will. Self-love in 
man was originally and properly placed in sub- 
servience to the love of his maker, who being 
in all respects justly supreme, had, whilst man 
stood in cheerful obedience, the supremacy in 
his affection ; but by his undutiful self-gratifi- 
cation, and letting in the suggestion of the temp- 
ter, his chief love turned from his maker to 
himself. Thus probably inordinate self-love 
and self-will originated in man, and they al- 
ways stand in a will separate from the will of 
God, and a spirit contrary to his holy spirit. 
This mental separation opened an easy road of 
access for the evil spirit to influence the human 
mind towards exterior objects, and rendered 
them the subjects of temptation. By giving 
way to carnal inclinations, man became car- 
nally-minded ; and " to be carnally- minded is 
death." 1 

7. When the Sovereign Legislator first added 
a positive law to Adam, he predenounced im- 
mediate death upon him in case of his trans- 
gression ; " in the day that thou eatest thereof, 
thou shalt surely die." 2 This seems to imply a 

1 Rom. viii. & 2 Gen. ii. IT. 



8 

mucli deeper and more important meaning than 
what relates to the body ; a meaning more im- 
mediately affecting to the rational sonl ; the pri- 
vation of a life which before transgression it 
happily enjoyed, and which, by disobedience, 
it must certainly lose. What then is the pro- 
per life of the soul, and what is the death of 
that which must for ever exist ? Merely to be, 
cannot be the life intended. It must be, to live 
in that life which immutably exists only in the di- 
vine nature 9 and which is not to be enjoyed but 
by partaking of the divine nature, the spirit of 
him who is the life, and our life ; that life the 
Evangelist declares to be the true light of men. 1 
This supernatural, spiritual, heavenly power 
and virtue of the great illuminator, and quick- 
ener, is the true life of the immortal spirit of 
man ; and the total want, or deprivation there- 
of, is its death. Turning from this to embrace 
temptation, our first parents did surely, in the 
day of transgression, deviate from, and die in 
spirit to that divine life by which they had been 
quickened. For, it is the spirit that quickeneth, 
or giveth life f and when life departs, death 
ensues of course. As the body dies when de- 
prived of its animal life, so the soul is left in 
a state of spiritual death, when that which is its 
proper life departs from it ; saving this differ- 
ence, that the deceased body remains wholly 
insensible ; but the soul, in the full state of its 
death, still exists under the unavoidable sense 
of its guilt and misery. Thus, according to wis- 



1 2 Pet. i. 4. John, xiv. 6. Col. iii. 4. John, i, 4. 2 John, 
vi. 63. 2 Cor. iii. 6. 



9 

dom, man found death in the error of his life. 1 
— " For God made not death, neither hath he 
pleasure in the destruction of the living" — But, 
" through envy of the Devil came death into the 
world." 2 



CHAP. II. 

1. The Fall of Adam and Eve affected all their Pro- 
geny, not with Guilt, but with Infirmity. 2. How 
this accrues. 3. The State of Infants. 4. The 
common Ascendence of the sensitive Powers over 
the rational. 5. How the Creature is said, Rom. 
viii. to be subjected to Vanity by its Creator. 6. 
When arrived to years of Understanding, we add 
Sin to Infirmity. 

1. It appears from holy writ, that previous 
to our own actual offences, we are all naturally 
affected by the transgression of our primogeni- 
tors. " By one man sin entered into the world, 
and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, 
for that all have sinned." 3 This is not to be 
understood of the death of the body only ; for 
all come into the world in the image of the 
earthly, or, void of the quickening and sensible 
influence of divine life. But this disadvantage, 
through the supreme goodness, is amply pro- 
vided for, and there appears no necessity to 
conclude, that we all come into the world justly 
obnoxious to divine vengeance ; for an offence 
committed by our primogenitors, before we came 

1 Wisdom i. 12, 13. 2 Ibid. ii. 24. 3 Rom. 5. 12. 



10 

into the world. With what propriety can an 
infant incapable of committing any crime, be 
treated as an offender? The scripture positively 

assures us, God's ways are equal 1 that the 

soul that sinneth it shall die, and not the son 
for the fault of the Father — that ichatever 
Adam's posterity lost through him, that and more 
they gain in Christ; 2 and undoubtedly, his 
mercy and goodness, and the extent of his pro- 
pitiation, are as applicable to infants, who have 
not personally offended, as to adults who have. 
3. The immortal reasonable soul of man, in 
every individual, appears to be the immediate 
production of its Creator j for the prophet Ze- 
chariah, speaking of the great acts of God in 
creation, asserts, that " he formeth the spirit of 
man within hiin." 3 And in Eccles. xii. 7> we 
read upon the death of the body, " Then shall 
the dust return to the earth as it was, and the 
spirit shall return unto God who gave it" The 
soul therefore, receiving its existence immedi- 
ately from the perfection of unchangeable pu- 
rity, can have no original impurity or intempe- 
rature in its nature ; but being immediately and 
intimately connected with a sensitive body, and 
of itself, unable constantly to withstand the ea- 
gerness of the animal passions after gratifica- 
tions of a carnal nature, is liable to be so influ- 
enced by them, as to partake with them in their 
sensual indulgencies. In this state the descend- 
ants of Adam come into the world, unendued 
with that divine life which Adam fell from. And 
who can say, this might not be admitted in mer- 

1 Ezek. xviii. * Rom. v. 15 to 20. 3 Zech.xii. 1. 



11 

cy to all the future generations of mankind ? 
1st. That each succeeding individual might be 
prevented from incurring the guilt of repeating 
the sin of our prime ancestors, and falling from 
the same degree of innocence, purity and divine 
enjoyment. 2d. That, by feeling the infirmity 
of our own nature, and the want of divine as- 
sistance, we might become the more sensible of 
our danger, and necessary dependence on our 
Creator, and thence be continually excited to 
seek after, and cleave to him, in watchfulness, 
circumspection and prayer, in order to obtain a 
state of restoration. 3d. That having in part 
attained such a state, our prudence might be 
useful towards our preservation and growth 
therein ; since we should certainly be more as- 
siduously concerned, to secure to ourselves a 
good condition obtained through pains and dif- 
ficulty, than one we might have been originally 
placed in without any care or trouble to our- 
selves. 

3. Whatever were the peculiarities attending 
the fall of the first man and woman, or those 
consequent upon it, this is certain, that their 
progeny do not come into the world in that 
same state of brightness themselves were consti- 
tuted in after their creation. It cannot escape 
the notice of those who have had the care of 
infants, that the earliest exertions observable in 
them, evidently arise from the powers of animal 
desire, and animal passion ; how prone these 
are to increase in them, and to predominate as 
they grow up, and the solicitude it requires to 
keep children out of unruliness and intempe- 
rature, as they advance to youth's estate ; how 



IS 

much too potent their inordinate propensities 
are for the government of the rational faculty ; 
what pains are necessary to regulate, and often 
but to palliate them, by a virtuous education, 
and improving converse ; and the impossibility 
they should ever be radically subdued and ruled, 
without the application of a superior principle. 

4. In the present state of our nature, the sen- 
sitive powers take the lead of the rational in the 
first stage of life, as the soul brings only a ca- 
pacity, without any real knowledge, or potency, 
into the world with it. It acquires its know- 
ledge by degrees, enlarging also in capacity to 
receive it gradually. Every one knows, it is 
not capable at five or ten years of age, to com- 
prehend the same ideas in the same extent, as in 
riper and more advanced years. It first becomes 
impressed with the images of external things, 
presented through the corporeal organs, and 
afterwards with those mental ideas inculcated 
by its primary instructors, whether true or 
false. Hence the bias of education becomes 
strong, either to right or wrong, according 
as the instructions received are agreeable to 
either ; and the passions being enlisted in their 
service, occasionally exercise their warmth in 
favour of the prevalent idea or impression, how- 
ever wrong it may be ; unless the mind, through 
Divine illumination, discover its error, and sub- 
mit to its rectification. 

5. Previous to the reception of knowledge, 
the soul is joined to the body, by the power of 
its Creator ; who, in consequence of the fall, saw 
fit it should be so. " For," saith the Apostle, 
" the creature was made subject to vanity, not 



13 

willingly, but by reason of him who hath sub- 
jected the same in hope ; because the creature 
itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of 
corruption, into the glorious liberty of the chil- 
dren of God." 1 

The rational soul is here intended by the 
creature, and properly denominates the man. 
Herein the true distinction lies, betwixt the hu- 
man species and creatures of inferior kinds. 
This descends not with the body from parents 
to children ; the soul being an indivisible imma- 
terial substance, cannot be generated. The soul 
of the child never was in the parent, and there- 
fore could never sin in him, nor derive guilt 
from his transgression. Neither can guilt ac- 
crue to it, merely from its being joined to a body 
descended from him, because that junction is the 
act of the Creator. 

To account a child guilty, or obnoxious to 
punishment, merely for an offence committed by 
its parents, before it could have any conscious- 
ness of being, is inconsistent both with justice 
and mercy ; therefore no infant can be born with 
guilt upon its head. 

6. Besides our natural alienation from, and 
ignorance of the internal Life of God, 2 in our 
fallen state, it must be acknowledged, that all 
who have arrived to such a degree of maturity 
as to be capable of receiving a right understand- 
ing, and of distinguishing the inward monitions 
of Truth in their conscience, have also increased 
and strengthened the bonds of corruption upon 
themselves, in different degrees, by a repeated, 

1 Rom. viii. 20, 21 . * Eph. iv. 18. 
B 



14 

and too frequently an habitual indulgence of the 
carnal part, against the sense of duty received ; 
and are more deeply entered into the dark re- 
gion of the shadow of death, through their own 
trespasses and sins. l Thus, " all have sinned, 
and come short of the glory of God." 2 



CHAP. III. 

1. The State of. Man in the fallen Nature, and the 
Necessity of his Renovation. 2. His inability to 
accomplish it for himself, and the necessity of Di- 
vine Assistance thereunto. 3. What moral evil 
is — that it both may, and must be removed from 
Man in order to his Felicity. 4. Without this, 
Man is not fully acquitted by the one offering of 
our Saviour at Jerusalem. 5. The Spirit of God 
is absolutely necessary to effect this great work. 
6. What perfect Redemption from Sin consists in — 
The Term World, John iii. 16. is not to be confined 
to the Elect — Christ tasted Death for all Men with- 
out Exception. 

1. Whatever we may have derived from 
our parents, we certainly accumulate to our- 
selves additional corruption. " All flesh hath 
corrupted his way upon the earth. " 3 Every 
adult person, in his common natural state, must, 
upon serious introversion, find in himself a 
proneness to the gratification of self, and the 
sensual part; an eager inclination at times to 
forbidden pleasure, an aversion to piety and 
holy walking, a consciousness of guilt, and a 

1 Eph. ii. 1. 2 Rom. iii. 23. 3 Gen. vi. 1 7. 



IS 

fearful apprehension of the approach of death. 
Men generally confess they have erred and 
strayed, like lost sheep, from the salutary paths 
of virtue and duty ; and that, such is their frailty, 
it is an easy thing for them to fall in with temp- 
tation; but hard, if not impossible, effectually 
to resist it. Nay, even the high rewards pro- 
mised to virtue and a good life, and the sore 
punishments annexed to vice and folly, are al- 
together insufficient to retain them in the practice 
of the former, or to enable them to conquer the 
force of their inclination to the latter. This 
demonstrates the corruption of their nature; and 
as " out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh;" 1 so from what lodges or presides 
within, the exterior practice arises. The cor- 
ruption in the heart corrupts the actions, man- 
ners, and language. Hence all the irregularities 
in conduct, all the profane and untrue speeches, 
all the common complimental falsehoods, to gra- 
tify the pride and folly of vain minds. 

As the origin of evil in man, came by trans- 
ferring his attention and desire from his Crea- 
tor to the creature, dividing his will from the 
will of God, and his spirit from the spirit of 
trod; so the continuation of evil in man is by 
the continuance of this separation, and must 
abide so long as that remains. In this situation, 
commonly called the state of nature, we are 
both unfit for, and unable to enter the heavenly 
kingdom, which admits of nothing sinful, or 
unclean, 2 It is therefore absolutely requisite 
that man should be made holy, in order to bre 

1 Mat. xii. 34. 2 Eph. v. 5. 



16 

happy. Holiness cannot unite with unholiness ; 
nor can ability arise from infirmity. If pollu- 
tion can cleanse itself, if evil can produce good, 
if death can bring forth life ; man thus corrupt- 
ed, debilitated, and deadened, may disengage, 
reform, quicken, and restore himself. But it is 
not in the power of man, as such, to extricate 
himself from the bonds of sin and death. Yet, 
as impurity is the bar, it must be removed. As 
sin separates man from his Maker, 1 man must 
be separated from sin, or he cannot be reconcil- 
ed and united, to him. Without restoration to 
a state of holiness, he cannot enjoy the felicity 
pertaining to that state ; for, " without holiness 
no man shall see the Lord." 2 

How then shall corrupt man become holy ? 
how shall he, in a state of utter incapacity, 
enter into and maintain a warfare against his 
many and mighty adversaries, which beset him 
within and without? what ability has he to 
fight his enemy who is already enchained by 
him ? a power too strong, for man has got pos- 
session ; it must be a superior power to dispos- 
sess him, to rescue and restore man ; and who 
is sufficient for these things ? None but his 
Omnipotent Creator was able to unbind and 
extricate him. But his will Adam had separa- 
ted from, his law he had transgressed, his com- 
mand he had disobeyed, and against him alone 
he had committed this high offence. Yet, be- 
hold the astonishing compassion and kindness 
of infinite goodness ! an all-sufficient means 
was straightway provided, for the redemption 

1 Tsa.lix.S. 2 Heb. xii. 14. 






17 

both of the actual offenders and all their pro 
geny. The eternal word, the son, the lamb of 
(tO(1 Almighty, gave instant demonstration of 
the greatness of divine love and mercy, in then 
concurring with the father, to yield himself up 
in due time to take the nature of man upon 
him, 1 and, by resigning it to suffering and deaths 
to make it a propitiation for the whole species; 
and also, in immediately, and all along, afford- 
ing a manifestation of his holy spirit to every 
man to profit withal, 2 in order to their present 
deliverance from the power of sin, and their 
everlasting salvation from the certain effect of 
abiding therein to the last, namely, the second 
death. 

That man should, of himself, empower him- 
self to live in the constant practice of crossing 
his natural inclinations and propensities, is a 
wild presumption ; but that a spirit infinitely 
good, and more powerful than all his enemies, 
should so influence, incline, and enable him, is 
highly reasonable to believe, because absolutely 
necessary. By the help of (rod's Spirit, man 
may, like the Apostle, be assisted to keep hw 
body under, and bring it into subjection,* before 
the strength of its passions and affections lessee 
by decay of nature ; which the rational faculty 
can never effectually accomplish, even under 
that decay, without superior assistance. 

3. Neither the possibility, nor probability, of 
man's purification and sanctification by the holy 
spirit, can reasonably be doubted; for, first, as 
physical evil, or bodily pain, has no substantial 

VHeb.iU&. * I Cor. xii.7. * I Cor.ix.£T. 



18 

existence of its own. but is purely incidental to 
corporeal nature ; so moral evil is to the soul, 
a disorder which it has improperly lapsed into. 
It is no part of God's creation, nor has any real 
existence by itself: but is the fallen, defective, 
distempered condition of beings, once created 
without intemperature, or defect. Evil there- 
^fore, though it be in man. is no constituent part 
of man, but an imperfection adventitious to his 
nature, which by au all-powerful principle, he 
may be recovered from, and his nature restored 
to a state of #tness for union with his Maker. 
Secondly, uncreated omnipotence* is certainly 
mare able to cleanse, than the creaturely, cor- 
rupt, and fallen powers of darkness are to defile ; 
and infinite goodness must be as willing and 
jready to effect the first, as limited envy the 
last. Did not the Sovereign Lord intend man 
should be made holy, he would not require it ; 
nor would he require it without affording him 
the assistance requisite to accomplish it, for he 
enjoins no impossibilities. That he doth require 
it, the sacred writings sufficiently witness. 
■"God," saith an apostolic writer, "hath not 
called us unto uncleanness, but unto holi- 
ness." 1 And, " Christ also loved the church, 
and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify 
and cleanse it, with the washing of water by 
the word," 2 (or the purifying efficacy of the 
holy word, or spirit, which cleanseth the soul 
as water doth the body) "that lie might present 
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot 
or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should 

1 i Thes. iv. 7. * Eph. v. 25, &c. 



19 

be holy and without blemish." In another place, 
he gives this exhortation, " Abstain from all 
appearance of evil," 1 — then proceeds — " And 
the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; and 
I pray God, that your whole spirit, and soul, 
and body, be preserved blameless unto the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." And to en- 
courage them to seek and hope for it, he imme- 
diately assures them, " faithful is he that cal- 
leth you, who also will do it." 

4. Vain is that imaginary pretence, that 
Christ has paid the whole price for us, by which 
we stand fully acquitted in the sight of God ; 
that we have complete redemption in him with- 
out sanctijication in ourselves ; and that by the 
external offering up of his body, he hath per- 
fected the work for us, and we are already re- 
conciled thereby. For, was this the real truth, 
Christ only paid the price of man's redemption, 
that he might continue in a state of pollution, 
and practice evil with security; or be justified 
in breaking the known commands of God, and 
serving Satan during the whole term of this 
life. Contrary to this, the apostolic doctrine is, 
" His own self bore our sins in his own body 
on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should 
live unto righteousness." 2 — "He died for all, 
that they which live should not henceforth live 
unto themselves, but unto him who died for 
them." 3 — "How shall we that are dead to sin 
live any longer therein ?" 4 — " Let not sin there- 
fore reign in your mortal body, that ye should 

1 1 Thes. v. 22, 24. 2 1 Pet ii. 24, 3 2 Cor. v. 151 
4 Rom. vi. 2, 12, 21, 22. 



20 

abey it in the lusts thereof." — <•' What fruit had 
ye then in those things whereof ye are now 
ashamed ? For the end of those things is death. 
But now being made free from sin, said become 
servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holi- 
ness, and the end everlasting life." 

It is true, the apostle saith, " By one offer- 
ing he hath perfected for ever them that are 
sanctified." 1 But this doth not imply, that his 
sacrifice perfected those who never came to be 
sanctified. Applying it to this case, it can mean 
no more than, that such who have so experi- 
enced the effectual operation of divine grace, as 
to become sanctified, have remission by that 
one offering for sins committed before their 
sanctification, which perfects their redemption ; 
and also for transgressions after, upon repent- 
ance. For sin once committed cannot be un- 
done ; present and future obedience is no more 
than duty ; and past offences must still re- 
main against us without forgiveness. Our 
Saviour therefore, by his sacrifice, manifested 
the mercy, love, and kindness of God ; " by 
whom," saith the apostle, < k he was set forth to 
be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to 
declare his righteousness, for the remission of 
sins that are past, through the forbearance of 
God." 2 Herein he shewed, that a door of re- 
conciliation is opened to all men ; but those 
who through unbelief of, and disobedience to 
divine grace, never experience the work of sanc- 
tification, deprive themselves of that unspeaka- 
ble advantage ; for it is through sanctification 

J Heb. x. 14. 3 Rom.iii.25. 



21 

that any come effectually to enjoy the benefit of 
the sacrifice of Christ. That outward offering 
for all, shewed the love of God towards all ; 
and that he stands ready to pardon past trans- 
gression, in all who sincerely accept his terms 
of true repentance and reformation; but our 
salvation is not completed by that single act 
only, and the w r ork of redemption finished for 
us without us. Though Christ died for us, that 
Ave might be brought unto glory, yet we are not 
actually purified, fitted for, and introduced into 
the kingdom merely by that one offering. The 
way to reconciliation was opened by the death 
of Christ ; but we are not saved by his life till 
we livingly experience the work of salvation in 
our own particulars. 

5. It is always requisite that the means be 
adequate to the end, the cause sufficient to the 
effect ; therefore as all men throughout all na- 
tions, and every generation, originally stand in 
equal relation to their Creator ; have been, and 
must naturally be, in absolute need df his help, 
in order to purification and salvation, the means 
afforded for this purpose must be universal to 
reach all. It must be a principle of real and 
powerful holiness and goodness, to change the 
condition of man from evil to good. It must 
be omnipotent, to enable him to overcome his 
adversaries, the world, the flesh, and the devil. 
Nothing but a spirit superior to all these can 
effectually cleanse the soul, and operate to the 
expulsion and exclusion of those subtle and 
powerful enemies which continually seek to hold 
men in the bondage of corruption; therefore 
nothing but God's holy, universal, almighty 



as 

spirit can effect this necessary alteration in man, 
rectify the disorder sin has introduced into his 
nature, and raise him up from a state of spiritual 
death, by producing a new and heavenly birth 
of divine life in him, by which he may be cre- 
ated anew in Christ Jesus unto good works, and 
restored to the image of God in righteousness 
and true holiness. 

6. Perfect redemption consists, first, in pay- 
ing the price of ransom; and second, in bring- 
ing out of bondage, and setting the prisoner at 
liberty. Our Saviour paid the first by his suf- 
fering and sacrifice ; and he performs the last 
by the effectual operation of his spirit, in the 
hearts of those who receive him, and resign 
wholly to him. 

None have cause to murmur at, or complain 
against the dispensations of their benovelent 
Creator; for in Christ he hath rendered to eve- 
ry child of Adam a full equivalent for the loss 
sustained through his unhappy fall. " God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." 1 I know 
some alledge, that the World here intends not 
all men, but the elect only. But we find the 
term world, when confined to men, in the New 
Testament, is used either for all mankind in ge- 
neral, for the majority of mankind, or for the un- 
believing part of it ; and where it intends a part 
of the species, it is often used to signify unbe- 
lievers, and to distinguish them from believers, 
but is never spoken of believers only. Besides, 

1 John, iii. 16. 






S3 

sucli an acceptation would turn the text into 
nonsense, for then it must be thus understood ; 
**' God so loved the elect that he gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever of the elect believeth 
in him, should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." This would imply, that some of the 
elect would not believe in him, and all the con- 
sequeht absurdities of that position. But read 
the text as it stands, and the particle whosoever 
properly distinguishes the world into believers, 
and unbelievers, or faithful and unfaithful ; and 
shews that God so loved the whole of his rational 
creation, that he gave all an opportunity of be- 
ing saved through believing ; and if any did 
not so embrace it, their refusal was the cause 
of their condemnation, and not the want of GodV 
love, nor of an opportunity of closing in with, 
and receiving the benefit of it. This the four 
succeeding verses plainly declare. " For God 
sent not his Son into the world to condemn the 
world, but that the world through him might be 
saved. He that believeth on him is not con- 
demned ; but he that believeth not is condemned 
already, because he hath not believed in the name 
of the only begotten Son of God. And this is 
the condemnation, that light is come into the 
world, and men loved darkness rather than 
light, because their deeds were evil. For every 
one that doth evil, hateth the light, neither com- 
eth to the light, lest his deeds should be reprov- 
ed." 1 It is not reasonable to conclude, the 
whole world can mean less than the whole hu- 
man species* 

1 John,iii. 17. &c. 



24 

The apostle Peter saith, " The prophecy 
came not in old time, or rather at any time, by 
the will of man, but holy men of God spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost. But there 
were false prophets also among the people, even 
as there shall be false teachers among you, who 
privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even 
denying the Lord that bought them, and bring 
upon themselves swift destruction." 1 This in- 
dicates that Christ died not only for those who 
come to be saved, but also for those who bring 
destruction upon themselves; otherwise it can- 
not be understood that, by his sacrifice, he 
bought, or paid the price of redemption, condi- 
tionally for them as well as others. But if he 
thus bought those who denied him, who yet oc- 
casioned their own destruction, it is truly as- 
serted in the full extent of the words, that " He 
by the grace of God should taste death for every 
man;" 2 and that " He is the propitiation for our 
sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins 
of the whole world." 3 

1 2 Pet. i. 21. and ii. 1. 2 Heb. ii. 9. * 1 John, ii. 2, 



25 



CHAP. IV. 

1. The Progeny of Adam not condemnable for his 
Transgression, but their own. 2. The vital part 
of Religion is internal, and may be experienced by 
People under every religious denomination, and in 
every part of the World — Pagans not necessarily 
excluded from all Share in Christ and Christianity; 
which, 3. Consists not essentially in Exteriors, or 
an imagery of Religion, but in being endued with 
a new Nature. 4 and 5. This is certainly and sen- 
sibly to be known, through the operation of Divine 
Grace. 6. Christ waits to be gracious at the door 
of every Man's Heart, causeth the Dead to hear his 
voice, quickens the observant, and renders them 
Partakers of his Heavenly Communion. 

1. However public a person Adam may be 
accounted, and however his posterity might, 
without a Redeemer, have been by any thought 
chargeable with his sin, though I am unable to 
conceive how any man should deserve condemna- 
tion for what he could not help ; yet our Saviour 
having paid the price of our redemption, by 
tasting death for every man, 1 there cannot be 
any thing chargeable to Adam's descendants, 
merely on account of his transgression, exclu- 
sive of their own. Original sin, therefore, in 
that sense which implies guilt in them for his 
offence, I apprehend, has no foundation in truth. 
Nor, was it really so, could any ceremonious per- 
formance of men, or even all the water of Jor- 
dan wash it away. All exterior forms, how- 
ever mistakingly exalted, or celebrated amongst 

1 Heb. ii. 9. 



26 

mankind, are but outward and visible signs, and 
altogether ineffectual towards any real change 
or reformation of the subject. And respecting 
little children who are taken away before they 
have personally offended, they cannot in equity 
be chargeable, but may with just confidence be 
resigned, as perfectly safe, in the arms of their 
Saviour, who declared, " Of such is the king- 
dom of heaven ; m and also told his followers, 
*' except ye be converted, and become as little 
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven." 2 

2. The vital part of man's religion and duty 
stands, principally, in a right attention to, and 
a faithful obedience of the manifestation of the 
spirit of Christ in the heart and conscience. He 
who pays due and constant regard to this, is in 
his measure a follower of Christ, and has, in 
some degree, the reality of Christianity in him ; 
live under what mode of profession, or in what 
part of the world soever he may. For who is a 
servant of Christ but he that willingly obeys 
him ? Is he who willingly acts according to his 
verbal precepts, a follower of Christ ; and is 
not he who, without the knowledge of these, 
with equal willingness follows the leadings of 
Ms spirit, also his servant ? Of this spirit the 
truly virtuous tnd religious amongst the gen- 
tiles were, in degree, partakers ; " for," saith 
holy writ, " when the gentiles which have not 
the law, do by nature the things contained in 
the law, these, having not the law, are a law 
unto themselves 5 which shew the work of the 

1 Mat. xix. 14. *lbid.-rviii. S. 



27 

law written in their hearts ; their conscience also 
bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean- 
while accusing or else excusing one another." 1 
The words by nature here, I apprehend, are 
not to be understood as if the apostle intended 
the gentiles became virtuous by any goodness 
in their fallen nature, which must be the same 
as all other mens. The context shews, he was 
here distinguishing between those who enjoyed 
the ministration of the Mosaic law, and those 
who had it not ; and he useth the expression, 
by nature, in the same sense as if he had said, 
without an education under the law ; and pro- 
ceeds to shew, that though they had it not, yet 
they practised the substance intended by the 
law. This shewed not, that their own hearts 
were their law, but as the apostle explains it, 
that the work of the law was written in their 
hearts, and that they had a part in the new co- 
venant ; in reference to which it is said, " I will 
put my law in their inward parts, and write it 
in their hearts." 2 Though they were without 
the law of Moses, they were not without law 
to God. For, by receiving and retaining the 
divine impressions in their consciences, they 
were under the law to Christ, or subject to the 
manifestation of his spirit in their hearts ; and in 
proportion to their obedience, partakers of the 
nature of the divine frincifle within them. 
By the internal operation of this nature it was 
that they became reformed in heart, and rectified 
in life and practice, so far as they were so ; or 
as the text has it, enabled " to do the things 

iRom, ii. 14, 15. 3 Jer.xxxi S3- 



2S 

contained in the law." Originally disordered, 
and actually depraved, their own nature as men 
could never have led and empowered them to 
this ; for, since the primary lapse, it is prone to 
evil, 1 and true reformation and religion arise 
not from that disordered and corrupt ground. 
They come not by nature, but by grace. They 
are the fruit of that good seed universally sown 
in every heart, by the great and good Husband- 
man for that end. Were it not for the notices 
and powers communicated by this internal prin- 
ciple, man must have continued to proceed in 
the increase of corruption, irreligion and misery ; 
as appears too evidently by the conduct of such 
as disregard it. Not by following their own 
nature therefore, but by obedience to the inward 
law of the divine nature written in the heart, 
the conscientiously virtuous amongst the gen- 
tiles, as well as others, were enabled to perform 
the things, or just morals, contained in the Mo- 
saic law; and thereby to evidence in their mea- 
sures, the effectual operation and authority of 
the divine lawgiver within them. 

The gentiles therefore partaking of the law 
written in the heart, cannot properly be said to 
be excluded from all share in the new cove- 
nant, or dispensation of the gospel. The gos- 
pel, taken in its full extent, is the revelation of 
the love and mercy, and the offer and operation 
of the grace of God, through Christ, to fallen 
man, in his natural and corruptible state, in or- 
der to his restoration and salvation. It is not 
wholly contracted into the mere tidings f but, 

1 Rom. vii. IS. 



9$ 

including these, goes deeper, and essentially 
consists in the thing declared by "-them; the 
power of God administered to the salvation of 
the soul. l By this the outward coming of Christ 
is rendered truly and fully effectual to each 
individual. Those who believe in, and obey 
him in his inward and spiritual manifestations, 
by which the gospel is preached in every ra- 
tional creature under Heaven, may come to be 
partakers of his life, and be saved by him from 
the second death of eternal misery, though pro- 
videntially incapacitated to know the exterior 
history of his incarnation, &c. 

That virtuous and devout gentiles were ap- 
proved of God, appears in the case of Cor- 
nelius; 2 for we find that before his reception of 
historical and verbal Christianity, his sincere 
devotion, and reverence towards his Creator, 
and charitable acts to the needy, " came up for 
a memorial before God," who also now taught 
Peter, Verse 15, the gentiles he had thus 
cleansed were no more to be esteemed common 
or andean than the believing Jews, and gave 
him, of a truth, to perceive, H that God is no re- 
specter of persons ; but in every nation, he 
that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is 
accepted with him." 3 

Hence it appears, those who conscientiously 
obey the spiritual manifestations of Christ in 
them, are internally, though not by outward 
profession, his disciples and followers, and 
truly believe in him so far as he is revealed to 
them ; for obedience is the certain proof of a 

1 Rom. i. 16* 2 Acts, x. 2, 3, 4. 3 Ibid. S4, 35. 



30 

right faith. And I make no question, but those 
iu any part of the globe, who, from invincible 
obstacles, have not the opportunity of historical 
Christianity, in their obedience to the spiritual 
appearance of Christ in their hearts, are accept- 
ed, and partake of the benefits of his death. 
Why should they not be as capable of receiving 
advantage by the sacrifice of Christ, as disad- 
vantage by the fall of Adam, whilst they are 
equally strangers to the history of both ? But 
certainly, those to whom the sacred writings 
are providentially communicated, are under 
double obligation, since they are favoured with 
that additional instrumental advantage ; and it 
will tend to their greater condemnation, if they 
believe not unto obedience. For, however high 
the profession of such may be, they are but im- 
perfect, superficial, ineffectual believers, who 
hold with the external part, and experience not 
the internal : christians in name, but not in deed 
and in truth. It is essential to us who have 
the scriptures, to believe both in the outward 
coming, and inward ministration of our Saviour; 
resigning to him, and trusting in him, with that 
faith of the operation of God, which works by 
love to the purification of the heart, and is the 
saving faith of the gospel. 

Complete Christianity has both an inside and 
ail outside ; a profession or bodily appearance, 
and a life and virtue, which is as a soul to 
that body. Those who are in possession of 
both, are complete christians. Those who have 
the inward part without the outward, though 
incomplete in that respect, will, in the sight of 
perfect equity, certainly be preferred to such 



31 

as have the latter without the former ; and it 
would be well for all who have the history, 
and profess the christian religion, yet walk 
contrary to its requirings, could they change 
conditions at last with such conscientious gen- 
tiles. Let those who are so deeply affected with 
absurdity, as to believe or imagine, that infinite 
wisdom, goodness and equity, has confined sal- 
vation to such of his creatures as happen, with- 
out any choice of their own, to inhabit parti- 
cular spots of the globe, are formalised after a 
peculiar manner, or entertain one particular 
set of articles and opinions, let such duly con- 
sider the following texts. " Verily I say unto 
you, I have not found so great faith, no not in 
Israel ; and I say unto you, that many shall 
come from the east and west, and shall sit down 
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
kingdom of heaven ; but the children of the 
kingdom," by education merely, " shall be cast 
out into utter darkness ; there shall be weeping 
and gnashing of teeth." 1 " After this I beheld, 
and lo, a great multitude, which no man could 
number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peo- 
ple, and tongues, stood before the throne, and 
before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and 
palms in their hands ; and cried with a loud 
voice, saying, salvation to our God, who sitteth 
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb !" 2 

3. Real Christianity consists not in the pro- 
fession of any framed articles of belief, nor in 
the practice of signs and ceremonies, however 
displayed with exterior pomp, or whatever sig- 

1 Mat viii. 10, 1 1, 12. 2 Rev. vii. 9, 1Q. 



32 

nificance may be fancifully attributed to them 
by their supporters. Form and profession make 
not a real christian, but the putting on of a 
new nature. " They that are Christ's, have 
crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." 1 
" If any man be in Christ, he is a new crea- 
ture ; old things are past away ; behold all 
things are become new, and all things are of 
God." 2 The necessity of regeneration, the 
power by which it is effected, and the co-ope- 
ration of God and man therein, are all included 
in that text ; " If ye live after the flesh, ye 
shall die ; but if ye through the spirit do mor- 
tify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For 
as many as are led by the spirit of God, they 
are the sons of God." 3 

4. The new birth is not brought forth in par- 
ticulars imperceptibly. The new man is re- 
newed in knowledge ; 4 in a certain and sensible 
experience. The soul in whom it is going for- 
ward, has an internal sense of it through its 
whole progress, and must keep a steady eye 
thereunto, that it may go forward. "We all," 
saith the apostle, " with open face beholding as 
in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image, from glory to glory, even 
as by the spirit of the Lord." 5 By looking at 
the deceitful beauty of temptation, men fall into 
sin, and by keeping a steadfast eye inwardly 
unto Christ in spirit, with humble resignation 
to him, and earnest desire after him, man finds 
preservation, and gradually advanceth from one 
degree of grace to another, till he really expe- 

1 Gal. v. 24. 2 2 Cor. v. 17, 18. 3 Rom. viii. 13, 14. 
*Col.iii.lO. 5 2 Cor. iii.18. 



33 

rienceth a renewal of the Divine likeness upon 
his soul, and an inward translation out of sin, 
darkness, and death, into Divine light, life and 
holiness ; and thereby, in conclusion, from 
anxiety and misery, to peace and felicity. 

5. The natural man may polish and adorn 
himself with variety of literature, arts and breed- 
ing; but in his best accomplishments, he is but 
the natural man still, which the apostle declares, 
receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, 
neither can he know them. * This is the natural 
condition of all men, before the work of reno- 
vation is begun in them ; and seeing all stand in 
need of divine grace to effect it, and that " God 
will have, or willeth, all men to be saved, and 
to come unto the knowledge of the truth f 92 so, 
u the grace of G od that bringeth salvation, hath 
appeared to all men, teaching us," by its con- 
victions, " that denying ungodliness, and world- 
ly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and 
godly in this present world." 3 Thus, " the 
mighty God, even the Lord hath spoken, and 
called the earth, from the rising of the sun unto 
the going down thereof/' 4 All the personal 
instructions, and writings of the prophets, apos- 
tles and their contemporaries, taken in their full 
extent, have never been any thing near so uni- 
versal amongst mankind, as this grace and 
power of God ; for it always hath been, and is 
present to every individual in all nations, and 
throughout every generation. 

6. He who is given for a light to the gentiles, 
and God's salvation to the ends of the earth, 5 not 

1 1 Cor. ii. 14. 2 1 Tim. ii. 4. * Tit. ii. 1 1 , 13. 4 PsaL 
1. 1. 5 Isa. xlix. 6. 



34 

only dispenseth of his grace universally and in- 
dividually, but even waits to be gracious. " Be- 
hold," saith he, "I stand at the door and knock : 
if any man hear my voice, and open the door, 
I will come in to him, and will sup with him, 
and he with me." 1 This is Christ in spirit, 
who proclaimeth, He that hath an ear, let him 
hear. 

Query. But if man in his fallen estate be 
dead, how r can the dead hear ? 

Answ. When the Saviour called, " Lazarus 
come forth VI 2 the dead was quickened, and 
immediately obeyed. The voice of him who is 
a quickening spirit* is a quickening power. 
" The hour is coming, and now is, when the 
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and 
they that hear shall live."* 

Query. What is meant by his standing at 
the door ? 

Answ. His wonderful condescension, pa- 
tience and long forbearance, in waiting upon 
the soul of man, as for an entrance ; that as he 
is a rational creature, he may be prevailed 
with willingly to open his heart to his Redeemer 
and receive him. 

Query. How doth Christ in spirit knock, or 
call? 

Answ. By influencing the soul in its seasons 
of quietude, so as to excite inclinations and 
desires towards good; and also at other times, 
by distressing it with the painful sensations of 
guilt and remorse, for its sinful pursuits and 
practices. 

1 Rev. iii. 20. 2 John xi. 43. 3 1 Cor. xv. 45. 4 John 
v. 25. 



35 

Query. How shall man open to him, and re- 
ceive him ? 

Answ. By resigning his attachment to self, 
and the propensities of sense, and humbly ad- 
hering to the voice, or present manifestations of 
the spirit. 

Query. How doth the Lord come in and 
sup with man, and make him a partaker of his 
supper ? 

Answ. When the spirit of Christ is received 
by the soul in faith, love and due submission, 
he proceeds by degrees to set it at liberty from 
the bondage and influence of corruption ; for, 
u where the spirit of the Lord is," in posses- 
sion, "there is liberty;" 1 and when he hath 
brought the soul into a proper degree of purifi- 
cation, he sheds the comfort of his love into it, 
and makes it a partaker of the communion of 
saints, which is inward and spiritual. This is 
the true supper of the Lord. He who partici- 
pates of this, discerns and tastes the Lord's spi- 
ritual body, and experienceth it to be meat in- 
deed, and his blood to be drink indeed. 2 

1 2 Cor. iii. 17. 2 John, vi. 55. 



36 



CHAR V. 

1. God's true and faithful Witness in the Conscience 
a Divine Monitor, and Daily Preacher to Man. 2. 
It produceth the New-birth in the Obedient; and, 
S, promoteth its growth in them. 4. This no in- 
dignity to Man, but the contrary, and of absolute 
necessity to his Ascendence above sublunary con- 
siderations. 5. It is not beneath the dignity of 
the Creator to make Man so far the subject of his 
especial regard, as jfco enable him to answer the 
end he created him for. The same Power that 
created, requisite to the support of his Creation, 
and his continual Superintendance necessary to 
Mankind. 

1. Mankind are not left to Satan, nor to 
their own lusts, nor to live without God in the 
world. A way is cast up. A means is provid- 
ed. Besides the natural, and traditional con- 
sciousness of mere moral good and evil in every 
breast, God hath a divine witness in the heart 
of each individual, which will truly manifest 
right and wrong in the consciences of those who 
faithfully attend thereto, afford light and power 
to set them free from the mists of prepossession 
and prejudice, and become to them a safe con- 
ductor, and an able supporter in the paths of 
religion and virtue. 

What instructor can we have equal to this 
most intimate witness ? A monitor so near, so 
constant, so faithful, so infallible ! This is the 
great gospel-privilege of every man : the ad- 
vantage of having it preached day by day in his 
own heart, without money, and without price,, 
yet with certainty. Is it reasonable to conclude, 



3? 

this nice, true, and awful discerned should be* 
less than divine? Can any person, upon serious 
consideration, imagine it to be the nature of the 
fallen man himself? Is there the least probabi- 
lity that any thing so corrupted and clouded, 
should so clearly and instantly distinguish, and 
would the heart of man, which is declared by 
inspiration to be deceitful above all things, and 
desperately wicked, 1 so faithfully reprove it- 
self? Would that which delights in its own in- 
dulgence, and is impatient of restraint, act in 
daily control to its own inclinations ? Is it the 
property of evil to do good? Here is a just 
criterion. That which is natural leads according 
to nature ; that which is spiritual according to 
the spirit. These are distinguished in scripture 
by the terms flesh and spirit, 2 and are truly 
said to war against each other in man. As sin 
wars against the spirit to destroy the soul, the 
spirit wars against sin to save the soul. 

Let me query with you who, instead of em- 
bracing in humility, love, and thankfulness, this 
upright principle as divine, are exerting your 
abilities to depreciate and revile it. Whilst you 
confess it distinguishes right from wrong in 
your own breasts, by its approbation of the first, 
and rebuke of the last ; can you thus acknow- 
ledge it to be infallibly good, and at the same 
time attribute it to yourselves ? "I know," 
saith Paul, " that in me, that is in my flesh/* 
or belonging to my nature, " dwelleth no good 
thing." 3 Is your nature in a better condition 
than his was ? Is there any good thing in yours, 

1 Jer. xvii. 9. 2 Rom. vii. 23. Gal. v. 17. z Rom. viL 18. 

D 



38 

yet was there none in his ? He confessed he 
had none as man. I presume you have no 
more that he had. Whence then this quick and 
righteous discriminator appearing in your con- 
sciences ? You will not say, it is of Satan ; it 
must therefore either he of man, or of God. 
For the reasons above hinted, it cannot be of 
man ; it must therefore be of God. Wonder- 
ful is the mercy, and great the advantage to 
every man, that God himself, according to the 
scriptures, thus condescends to be the teacher 
of his people, 1 by the manifestation of his spirit 
in every heart ; and certainly it ought to be ac- 
cepted and observed with the greatest reverence 
and thankfulness. 

2. The increase and operation of this living 
principle becomes a new life in and to the obe- 
dient soul, quickening and refreshing it with a 
sense of divine love, strength, and comfort. This 
life being begot and brought forth by the holy 
spirit in the willing mind, is called a birth of 
the spirit, and being its new production there, 
it is stiled the new -birth ; and seeing our first 
parents, immediately upon their creation, were 
favoured with this spiritual birth in them, and 
lost it by disobedience; the renewal of it, both 
in themselves and in their posterity, has taken 
the terms of regeneration and renovation^ or 
the birth of divine life renewed in man. Being 
inheritors of spiritual death in Jldam, or in the 
fallen state and nature, we can only be born 
again to life in Christ, by the power and virtue 

1 Isa. ii. 3. and liv. 13. Jer. xxxi. 34. John, vi. 45. and 
xvi. 13. 1 Thes. iv. 9. 1 John, ii. 27.* \ 



■ 39 

of his holy spirit, who is the resurrection and 
the life. 1 

3. Every productive power brings forth its 
own likeness ; the evil spirit an evil birth, and 
the good spirit a birth answerable to its good- 
ness ; and as every natural birth admits of a 
growth, so doth this spiritual birth in the soul. 
Our Saviour represents its gradual progression, 
in those similies of the increase of the mustard- 
seed, the process of leaven, and the springing 
up of living water into everlasting life. 2 The 
apostles Peter and John also shew the several 
gradations experienced amongst the believers, 
under the similies of new-born babes, children, 
young men, and fathers. 3 There is likewise 
not only a progression from the lowest of these 
states to the highest, but even that of fathers 
admits of continual advances, as Paul witness- 
eth ; who, though he truly asserted, that the law 
of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had set him 
free from the law of sin and death, 4, yet he was 
sensible of higher degrees of attainment still be- 
fore him ; and therefore, after he had been near 
thirty years in the apostleship, he makes this 
acknowledgement; "Not as though I had al- 
ready attained, either were already perfect, but 
I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for 
which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 
Brethren, I count not myself to have appre- 
hended ; but this one thing I do, forgetting 
those things which are behind, and reaching 
forth unto those things which are before, I press 



1 John, xi. 25. 3 Luke, xiii. 18, 22. John, iv. 14. 
3 .1 Pet. ii. 2. 4 Rom. viii. 2. 



toward the mark, for the prize of the high call- 
ing of God in Christ Jesus." 1 

4. Those who treat this doctrine, of the ne- 
cessity of man's being renewed, led and guided 
by the spirit of his Maker, as a disparagement 
to human reason, put the highest indignity upon 
the supreme wisdom, goodness, and power. 
The dignity of human nature consists not in 
self-sufficiency. The most exalted of created 
beings neither exist, nor act independent of their 
Creator ; much less man, who in his primitive 
purity was made lower than the angels. 2 He 
stands in continual need of divine help ; and 
his true dignity consists in being, by his reason, 
above all inferior creatures, capable of conscious- 
ly receiving thai assistance, and of being thereby 
preferred to, and preserved in a blessed union 
and communion with his Maker. It cannot be 
any lessening to an inferior to be directed and 
guided by a superior being ; especially by th$ 
supreme Lord, and sole author of all existence, 
infinite in excellency, power and wisdom, and 
immutable in glory. Indued with his spirit, in 
any degree, the creature is raised above the 
highest elevation of its own nature ; and the 
more it is clothed with it, the more it is dignified 
and exalted. 

No created being, by its natural powers, can 
rise above its natural sphere. To reach a sub- 
limer station, it must be assisted by strength su- 
perior to its own ; a power equal to the height 
jo{ its ascent. It is only when the sun of righte- 
ousness sheds forth its quickening beams upon 

* Phil iii. 12, 13, 14. 2 Hob. ii. 7. 



41 

the spirit of man, that the poor worm is capaci- 
tated in reality, to take wing and mount above 
its sublunary limits, towards the regions celes- 
tial. 

5. Some writers of the epicurean cast, have 
imagined it beneath the divine greatness, for the 
sovereign Lord of all, to stoop so low as to 
make man a peculiar object of his notice and 
regard. To such as mistake those sure marks 
of degeneracy, pride and haughtiness, for great- 
ness of soul, this may seem reasonable ; but in 
him to whom pride is abomination, 1 and as dis- 
tant from his similitude as darkness is to light, 
it cannot have any place. What it is not be- 
low him to create, it cannot be beneath him to 
regard, proportionably to the end he made it 
for ; and seeing man was created for a pur- 
pose of his glory, 2 and to partake of his felicity, 
it would derogate from his wisdom and good- 
ness, to suppose he should look upon it as below 
him to enable man to answer the great ends of 
his creation ; which he could not by any means 
do, without a competent assistance from his Ma- 
ker. Pride was the cause of the degeneracy of 
angels, and its natural consequence is the de- 
struction of peace and felicity to all that enter- 
tain it. By being something in our own con- 
ceit, attributing any good to ourselves, or as- 
piring above our place and due order, we cen- 
tre in pride and arrogance. Created beings 
may be guilty of this ; but it is impossible to 
that all-perfect Existence, who is infinite, omni- 
potent, and immutable. 

* Pro. xvi, 5* z Isa. xliii. 7. 



42 






This visible world demonstrates, it was madfc 
by an Omnipotent Power, and is preserved by 
the same power. Without power it could not 
be made ; and as Thomas Sherlock justly ob- 
serves, " That which owes its very being to 
power must depend upon the power that made 
it, for it can have no principle of self-subsistence 
independent on its cause." 1 What doth not 
necessarily exist, must both be originally crea- 
ted, and continually upheld by the power that 
tnade it. It had no being before its creation. 
It cannot retain its being against the will of its 
Creator. Its existence and support stand equal- 
ly in the power of its Maker; without whom 
it was nothing, could never have existed, nor 
can continue its existence. It was made by his 
power, is preserved by his power, and upon the 
withdrawment of his power would dissolve and 
evanish into its original nothing. There is no 
medium between self- existence and dependence 
on its cause; therefore a cessation from it of 
the power that made it, is annihilation to it. 
Thus, as all created things were made, and still 
subsist solely by the energy of the Creator's will 
and power, he must necessarily, whilst they ex- 
ist, be omnipresent with them, in them, and 
through them ; therefore cannot be ignorant of 
any thing relating to them, nor unconcerned 
about them, or any part of them. 

The continual interposition and superintend- 
ence of the spirit of God, was always requisite 
to man, both to preserve him whilst in innocence, 
and to recover him from under his fallen estate, 

* Discourse on Providence* 



43 

by governing the effects of natural causes ; and 
to counteract the wiles, and oppose the influences 
of the evil spirit. Therefore the great Media- 
tor for, and Redeemer of men, was from the 
beginning, not only incarnately and corporeally 
given for a propitiation for the sins of the whole 
world, to be testified, or verified, in due time ; 
but he was also as universally given, in a spi- 
ritual manner, to be a witness, a leader, and 
commander. 1 1. He is spiritually given for a 
witness, to testify against sin in every breast, by 
his smitings there for evil conceived or com- 
mitted. 2. For a leader and commander, to 
such as pay due regard to his convictions, by 
turning from iniquity to him that smites them, 
and cleaving to him in that faith and love he 
produces in them. These he leads in a cross 
to all the corrupt nature, and empowers them to 
follow him in the regeneration. This is the 
true doctrinal Cross of Christ. 

1 Isa. lv. 4. 



44 



CHAP. VI. 

1. Regeneration not only necessary, but really expe- 
rienced by the primitive Christians. 2. Paul's 
comprehensive description of this great work. It 
answers to the original Work of Creation, and is 
effected only by the Holy Spirit. 3. An Objection 
against the Sensibility of this Work answered. 
4. The same continued. 5. Who it is that disbe- 
lieves it. The Renunciation of human Reason not 
required, but the yielding it to an infallible In- 
structor, in order to its Rectification and Im- 
provement, r 

1. Now, O man ! what is the great business 
of thy life in this world, but to regain thy place 
in the paradise of God ; to secure an everlast- 
ing establishment in that inheritance which is 
incorruptible, undefiled, andfacleth not away? 1 
To accomplish this, thou must be stripped of all 
that which unfits thee for an entrance. What- 
ever has been the cause of exclusion must be 
removed. Whatever can have no place nor 
habitation there, must be separated from thee, 
or thou canst not be admitted. That which lets 
will let till it be taken out of the way. What- 
ever thou hast in thee or about thee, that thou 
art attached to, in consequence of the fall, all 
separate self and the carnal mind thou must 
resign, or thou canst never know a restoration. 
The gospel-axe, the power of the spirit of God, 
must be laid to the root of the tree of corruption 
in thee, that it may be extirpated, and the vine 
of life implanted in its room ; that in the heart, 

1 1 Pet. i. 4. 



45 

where the sinful nature hath spread its poison- 
ous produce, the engrafted word, which is able 
to regenerate and save the soul, may flourish, 
and bring forth its heavenly fruits; 1 from 
whence ariseth happiness to the creature, and 
praise to the eternal author of all virtue and 
felicity. 

The necessity of regeneration was not only 
preached to the people in the primitive times, 
but was actually experienced by the believers. 
A clear and pregnant instance we have in 1 Cor. 
vi. 9, 10, 11. " Know ye not that the unrighte- 
ous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? Be 
not deceived ; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, 
nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers <rf 
themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor co- 
vetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extor- 
tioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God ; and 
such were some of you : but ye are washed, but 
ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name 
of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God." 
Here the apostle plainly testifies, that some (rf 
the Carinthian brethren, who had been of pol- 
luted hearts and vicious lives, were become re- 
generated, made clean and holy ; and shews this 
.great change in them was wrought in the mime, 
or power of the Lord Jesus, which he explains 
to be, by the spirit of our God. The apostle 
Peter concurs with Paul in bearing the like 
testimony. " Seeing ye have purified your 
souls in obeying the truth, through the spirit, 
unto unfeigned love of the brethren ; see that 
ye love one another with a pure heart fervently^ 

1 Jattyes,i.21» 



46 

being born again, not of corruptible seed, but 
incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth 
and abideth for ever." x To the like purpose 
might be added Eph. ii. 5, 6. Col. i. 13 — ii. 10, 
11, 12, 13— iii. 9, 10. with the 6th chapter of the 
epistle to the Romans, and many other texts. 

2. The apostle particularly shews the nature 
and manner of this work in Romans the viith and 
viiith ; which, for want of a real experience of, 
many have been led to imagine, were intended 
by him, as only descriptive of his own condition 
at the time Jie wrote them ; yet it is manifest, 
they comprehend diverse, and even contrary con- 
ditions, which himself and others had experi- 
enced in their christian progress, and which it 
was impossible he should be in at one and the 
same time ; viz. a state of darkness, and a state 
of light ; a state of uncleanness, and a state of 
purity ; a state of bondage, and a state of liberty; 
a state of life, and a state of death. 

Chap. vii. 5. he saith, " When we were in 
the flesh," under the dominion of the carnal 
nature " the motions of sins which were" ma- 
nifested " by the law, did work in our members 
to bring forth fruit unto death." Here he refers 
back to that state of sin and death, they had for- 
merly been enthralled in, but were now past ; as 
fully appears by the succeeding verse, which 
saith, " But now we are delivered from the law, 
that being dead wherein we were held, that we 
should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the 
oldness of the letter." Vefse 7- he returns to the 
former state again, and becomes more particular. 

1 1 Pet. i. 22, 23. 



47 

" I had not known sin," saith he, a but by the 
law." Before he became sensibly convicted in 
his own conscience, where the sense of the law 
was opened to him, he remained in his first 
state of natural blindness ; yet knew it not to 
be such, notwithstanding his learned education, 
and legal strictness. Though dead as to any 
sense of divine life, yet he was alive in the spi- 
rit of the world. " For," saith he, " I was 
alive without the law once ; but when the com- 
mandment came, sin revived, and I died." 1 
Opposed by the internal administration of the 
spiritual law, which brought conviction, the sin- 
ful nature was afresh excited by the powers of 
evil, and sprung up as with new life and vigour, 
to obstruct his escape from it; "for without the 
law sin was dead." 2 That is, its nature re- 
mained quiet and undisturbed, enjoying its in- 
dulgence without interruption, till the law of 
life was administered against it. Then " the 
commandment which was ordained to life, I 
found," by the resistance of that nature, " to 
be unto death. For sin taking occasion by the 
commandment, deceived me, and by it slew 
me." 3 Or, darkened me, and brought a sense 
of death over me. It seems to have deceived 
him at first into a belief that the law brought 
forth death, because he found a sense of death 
ensue upon the convictions of this law ; but 
death is the fruit of sin, which is condemned bv 
the law. For saith he, " the law is holy, and 
the commandment holy, just, and good. Was 
then that which is good made death unto me? 

1 Rom. vii. 9. * Verse 8. s Verse 10, 1 L 



m 

God forbid." 1 He found it was that which so 
violently opposed it that produced death, and 
occasioned the condemnation of the law to come 
upon him, which discovered this death in him. 
This was permitted that sin might appear sin, 
and that by the convicting force of the command- 
ment it might become exceeding sinful in his 
view, or be held by him in abhorrence. He then 
feelingly expresses the enthralled situation of 
this convicted, but unconverted state. " The % 
laic is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under 
sin." 2 That is, he found himself as really in 
captivity under sin, as those are to their pur- 
chasers who are sold into slavery. " For that 
which I do, I allow not." 3 I am convinced it 
is evil, and would gladly be delivered from it ; 
but notwithstanding my convictions, am under 
its power, and unable to extricate myself. " For 
the good that I would, I do not ; but the evil 
which I would not, that I do." 4 Yet, in patient 
submission, and fervent cleaving to God, some 
consolation attends this awakened condition ; 
for, " If I do that I would not, it is no more 1 
that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I 
delight in the law of God after the inward man ; 
but I see another law" or power u in my 
members, warring against the law of my mind, 
and bringing me into captivity to the law" or 
power of sin, which is in my members." 5 Thus 
prevented of what I love, and enthralled by 
what I hate, what a miserable slavery am I in! 
" O, wretched man that I am ! Who shall de- 
liver me from the body of this death?" 6 

1 Rom.vii. 12, 13. 2 Verse 14. 3 Verse 15. 4 Verse 
19. s Verse 20, 21, 22," 23; 6 Verse 24. 



41) 

He then, still personating one in this strug 
gling situation, thanks God through Jesus Christ, 
for having brought him thus far on his christian 
course and warfare, that he could will to do 
good, though yet unable actually to perforin it. 1 
Hence he had a ground of thankfulness, in hope 
that he who had wrought the will in him, would 
also in due time perfect the deed by him. In 
conclusion, he proceeds to shew, though this had 
once been his condition, he -now experienced 
perfect deliverance, from all the perplexing and 
afflicting circumstances of this, and the several 
exercising states he had formerly passed through, 
and had just been giving so lively a description 
of. "There is therefore," saith he, " now no 
condemnation to them which are in Christ Je- 
sus," as he then certainly was, " who walk 
not after the flesh, but after the spirit : For the 
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath 
set me free from the law of sin and death." 2 
This again testifies his deliverance, and answers 
to that first cited, "Now we are delivered from 
the law," which condemneth for sin ; * that," 
sinful nature, "being dead wherein we were 
held, that we should serve in newness of spi- 
rit, and not in the oldness of the letter." 3 With 
these accords that of Colos. i. 12, 16. u Giving 
thanks unto the father, who hath made us meet 
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in 
light : Who hath delivered us from the power 
of darkness, and hath translated us into the 
kingdom of his dear son" 

In the passages above cited from Rom. vii. 

1 Rom. vii. 25. * Rom. viii. 1, 2. 3 Chap. vii. 6. 

E 



50 

and viii. the experienced apostle evidently in- 
cludes a representation of three very different 
conditions, in their course of progression and 
state of disparity from each other. First, a na- 
tural blind unconvicted state ; which is that of 
darkness and death/ answering to the original 
chaos before light was brought forth. Second, 
a state of illumination and discovery, of convic- 
tion and internal warfare, in order to a complete 
conversion ; which partakes of a mixture, and 
shews light and darkness in the act of separa- 
tion, like that: in Gen. 1, 3, 4, 5. Third, a state 
of redemption from the power of sin, through 
purification, and a translation into the spiritual 
kingdom of Christ ; which is the state of the 
perfect christian, and completes the new crea- 
tion, wherein every thing takes its due place, 
and moves in its proper order. I now refer it 
to the intelligent reader, whether it is not an ab- 
surdity to imagine, that these three diverse, and 
in some respects contrary states, should all sub- 
sist together, at the same time, in the same 
subject. 

By this representation, which contains a brief 
and comprehensive delineation of the work of 
the new-birth, the apostle shews to such as are 
young in the faith, what different states they 
have to pass through in that preparatory travel ; 
and also reminds the regenerate of what they 
have witnessed, in the lines of his own expe- 
rience. He describes the various steps, and 
principal leadings of the holy spirit, till by its 
effectual operation, the soul is rendered a new 

1 Gen. 1, 2. 



51 

creature, and iatroduced into the kingdom of 
God ; which being inward and spiritual, is en- 
tered by an inward and spiritual way. Hence 
it is clear, a man may acquire all the learning/ 
and receive all the degrees that schools and col- 
leges can bestow, with all the authority men can 
afford him, and may be strict in the practice of 
all the forms and exteriors of religion ; and yet 
remain the natural man still. These can bring 
him no nearer to true regeneration, than he was 
the moment of his birth ; for the new-birth is the 
work of the holy spirit only. Nothing but the 
spirit of holiness can make a man holy ; for 
nothing can communicate what it hath not. No- 
thing can set men free from the power of sin, 
and its wages, death, but the law, or power, of 
the spirit of life in Christ Jesus individually 
administered. This, which turneth sinners in- 
to saints by a real purgation, and renders them, 
as to their inward state, new creatures, remains 
to be their light and leader, and the primary 
guide of their life and conduct, by its imme- 
diate manifestations in the heart; whereby it 
frequently brings scripture-truths to their re- 
membrance, and opens the sense of them pro- 
fitably to their understandings, at the same time 
influencing the mind to a practice answera- 
ble. 

3. Evident as it is, that the apostle, in the 
foregoing scriptures, describes divers changes of 
condition, which through the operation and ef- 
fect of the holy spirit, he had certainly known 
and sensibly felt ; yet some have appeared, even 
amongst the leaders of the people, who acknow- 



52 

ledge ;* "The influence of God's spirit enables 
us to render him an acceptable service/' but as- 
sert, that it is in a way imperceptible to us : that 
the sacred writings are utterly silent concern- 
ing any sensible demonstrations of its ivorlcings 
within us; that they cannot be distinguished 
from the efforts of our own reason ; that all 
pretences to it are suggested by an enthusiastic 
or distempered fancy ; and that there never wai 
a christian with a cool head, and a sound judg- 
ment, that in any instance of a change of life, 
would presume to say, which part of his refor- 
mation was owing to divine help. 

The truly sound reformed christian knows 
and acknowledges, every part of his reforma- 
tion is owing to divine help ; and whoever pro- 
pagate the above-cited anti- scriptural doctrine, 
demonstrate their ignorance of true regeneration, 
and that their wisdom is but the superficial wis- 
dom of words ; which can only enable them to 
make a shew of knowledge, by talking about 
the things of God, without any right under- 
standing of them. The pomp of science, and 
the flourish of eloquence, have no more alliance 
to truth than the pride of life. They belong 
to the wisdom of this world, by which God is not 
to be known ; " For the world by wisdom knew 
not God, nor the things of God." 1 All the 
knowledge of the natural man, the man whose 
nature remains unchanged, whether called Pa- 

* See a quotation from Sermons published under the lu- 
dicrous title of Yoric's, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 
Jtprtty 1766. 

»1 Cor. i.21. Ibid.ii.lt. 



53 

gan, Jew, or Christian, and whether it be styled 
philosophy or divinity, is but the ineffectual 
ideal wisdom of this world : the vaunting 
head-knowledge. It is not the wisdom from 
above, by which alone God and the things of 
God are to be known; that is, experienced, 
These are out of the reach of arts, languages, 
and sciences ; and are discovered only by the 
manifestation of the spirit of Christ in the heart, 
" In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge/' 1 Yet though the world, by all 
its admired and celebrated wisdom, knows not 
God, there is a wisdom communicated by which 
he is known. "For God," saith holy writ, 
" who commanded the light to shine out of dark- 
ness, hath shiiied in our hearts, to give the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
the face," or inward appearance " of Jesus 
Christ." 2 The apostle adds, •• We have this 
treasure in earthen vessels ;" we enjoy it now 
whilst in these bodies of clay, " that the excel- 
lency of the power may be of God, and not of us. ,r 
This luminous and excellent power operates 
upon the humble thankful acceptor, so as to 
open an understanding of what he reads, both 
in scripture and other experimental writings ; 
often giving him to feel that concering which he 
reads, and rendering it of improving effect to 
him. But he who rejects the means can never 
attain the end. He who refuses or flies from the 
light of life, when it offers itself to him by re- 
proof and conviction ; not believing it to be of 
God, nor receiving it as such, stops its opera- 

1 Col. ii.3. 5 2 Cor. iv. 6, 7. 
E 2 



SI 

tiou, prevents it from opening itself to him, and 
enlarging in him. For the unbelieving heart 
shuts up its own way, 1 and therefore remains 
insensible of the internal power of the Saviour. 

4. What man upon earth can say, he has not 
had convictions? Or, that he has had them 
without any sense of them ? Who could have 
a sense of them, and not distinguish it from the 
efforts of his own reason ; not distinguish the 
reprover from the reproved ? Unfelt convictions 
are impossibilities. In what manner is the work 
of renovation known, without any perception of 
it in its progress? Did the apostle Paul so 
pathetically describe the painful states he had 
travelled through, and the opposite powers en- 
gaged within him, without ever having a certain 
sense of them ? Or is the coolness of his head, 
and the soundness of his judgment now to be 
arraigned ; and are his christian experiences to 
be treated, only as the issues of an enthusiastic 
or distempered fancy? 

How could any witness repentance unto life, 
remission of sins, and the times of refreshing 
from the presence of the Lord, without an in- 
ward sense of them ? Were all the cries, the 
pantings and thirstings after the Divine presence, 
uttered by the sacred writers icithout a sense of 
that want; and were all their triumphant re- 
joicings in the consolation of his presence, ex- 
pressed under a total insensibility of it ? Were 
the kindly fruits of the spirit, and the comforts 
of the Holy Ghost unfelt by those who enjoyed 
them ? Who can affirm these absurdities ? 

1 Mat. xiii. 58. Mark, vi. 5, & 



55 

Where can such blind leaders bring their blind 
followers to? Those who turn their backs on 
the light must walk in darkness. It is the sole 
property of the spirit of Christ, the light of men, 
to make true discoveries to the mind, both re- 
specting itself and every thing else that concerns 
it. Hence he is rightly styled the Sun of 
righteousness; the same thing to the soul of 
man, that the Sun in the firmament is to his 
body. The one is the light without, the other 
the light within; and therefore is properly so 
denominated. 

5. It is the unbelieving unrenewed man, un- 
acquainted with the effectual operation of this 
heavenly principle, that unwittingly rejects and 
disparages it, and thereby contributes to keep 
both himself and others in blindness concerning 
it, and prejudice against it. " The natural 
man," saith the apostle, " receive th not the 
things of the Spirit of God, for they are fool- 
ishness unto him ; neither can he know them, 
because they are spiritually discerned." 1 

What! saith the mighty man of reason, must 
I put out my eyes in order to see ? Must I lay 
aside and renounce my reason, to obtain a bet- 
ter understanding? It is impossible, absurd, 
and preposterous. Very true, and it is equally 
true, that no such absurdity is required. It is 
neither right reason, nor the proper use of man's 
reason, that is objected to and advised against. 
For right reason is truth, and is ever corres- 
pondent with the inward motions of the spirit 
of truth; and man's rational faculty is what 

^lCor.ii. 14, 



56 

renders him capable of receiving Divine influ- 
ence and instruction, without which it is impos- 
sible to conceive he could be a fit subject for it; 
aud was his reason in such a perfect state as to 
merit the name of right reason, he would not 
stand in such absolute need of it. But it evi- 
dently appears, from the various biasses and pre- 
possessions men are generally under, the weak- 
ness and mutability of their understandings, and 
the innumerable and irreconcileable differences 
amongst them, especially the learned and leading 
part of mankind, that human reason is far from 
being always agreable to right reason, which is 
unchangeably true. What is cautioned against 
therefore, is the setting up human reason above 
its due place in religion, making it the leader 
instead of the follower of revelation, the teacher 
instead of the learner; and esteeming it vested 
with a kind of self-sufficiency, independent of 
the direction and help of God's holy spirit. 

We are not required to lay aside our under- 
standings, either in order to, or under the in- 
fluences of the spirit; but, as prudent and docile 
scholars, to submit them to the necessary in- 
struction and improvement of that infallible 
Master of infinite wisdom and knowledge, who 
is the universal teacher of his people ;* that we 
may be enabled rightly to obey and worship 
him with the spirit, and with the understanding 
also. 2 The spirit of God and a right under- 
standing must infallibly concur. 

As the light of the sun is so agreeably dis- 
pensed by the sovereign wisdom, that it doth not 

1 Isa.liv. 13. Jer. xxxi. 34. John, vi. 45. Heb. viii. 10, 11. 
and x. 16. 2 1 Cor. xiv. 15. 



57* 

put out or blind men's eyes, but assists to the 
proper 4 use of them; so the divine illumination 
and influence is administered by the same wis- 
dom, in such due degrees, that it neither banishes 
man's reason, nor deprives it of its utility; but 
restores it to its full and proper use in religion, 
by dispelling the fogs of prejudice and passion, 
giving it a clear sense of duty, and furnishing 
ability to perform it. The holy men of God 
were not deprived of their understandings, when 
they spoke and wrote as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost, 1 but found them illuminated and 
highly improved by it. They were not used by 
the spirit as senseless machines, nor remained 
as vegetables, imperceptive of the virtue arising 
in, and enlarging them. Their faculties were 
brightened, and raised to an higher pitch of 
usefulness, than could ever have been reached 
by them whilst unassisted by the power of divine 
grace. With good reason, therefore, hath one 
of the inspired writers given this necessary ex- 
hortation; " Trust in the Lord with all thine 
heart, and lean not unto thine own understand- 
ing." 2 And he further saith, " He that trusteth 
in his own heart, is a fool." 3 

1 1 Peter, L SI, 2 Prov. iii. 5. 3 Ibid, xxviii. 26. 



58 



CHAP. VII. 

1. Whence true Religion ariseth. 2. How God is 
to be known according to the New Covenant. Of 
whom the Body or Church of Christ is composed, 
p and the Life it enjoys. 3. Whence this Life is re- 
ceived. 4. That which brings forth the New-birth 
must maintain it. 5. True Religion always essen- 
tially the same. Exterior Institutions only super- 
additions to lead the Darkened and Degenerate to- 
wards it. 6. Man has no pretension to Merit, 
but through Faithfulness, is graciously allowed a 
filial Claim. ' 7. The Nature of God's Covenants 
with Man. 

1. Notwithstanding too many are taught 
to imagine importance and efficacy, in mode, 
ceremony, sign and shadow, the mint, anise 
and cummin of the legal dispensation ; yet it is 
certain, that " in Jesus Christ, neither circum- 
cision availeth any thing, nor uncircu incision, 
but faith which worketh by love." 1 Neither 
the practice, nor disuse of forms and rituals, are 
of any availance with God. But the first may 
more than unprofitably busy their practisers, if 
they are so dangerously deceived, as to place 
confidence either in their own performances, or 
those of their leaders. The religion of the true 
christian consisteth not in form, but substance ; 
and ariseth not from the activity of human rea- 
son, imagination, or opinion, but from an heart- 
felt sensation of divine love in the light of life. 
Its foundation is no less than the immediate ad- 
ministration of God's holy spirit to the spirit of 

1 Gal. v. 6. 



59 

man. This shews unto man what his thoughts 
are; 1 what himself, and what the Lord is, so f^v as 
properly concerns him. It opens the understand- 
ing, and directs the duty of the obedient ; " for 
the way of man is not in himself; it is not in 
man that walketh to direct his steps. " 2 It fe 
the light of the lamb which sheweth the way of 
salvation ; the one great light appointed to rule 
the day or spiritual dispensation of Christianity ; 
wherein the nations of them which are saved 
must walk. 3 

2. Men in their natural state may, by read- 
ing and study, collect abundance of notions 
concerning the Supreme Being ; but as light 
discovers all things, yet cannot be really known 
but by its own appearance ; so (rod, who, in 
the most perfect and superlative sense, is light, 4, 
can only be truly known by his own immedi- 
ate manifestation. What is ordinarily called 
the knowledge of God, 5 is but a series of ap- 
prehensions concerning his essence, his attri- 
butes, and his providence ; but what our Sa- 
viour called so, is the real experimental sense 
of his life. "This is life eternal, that they 
might know thee the only true (rod, and Jesus 
Christ whom thou hast sent." Truly to know 
him, is to participate of the quickening sense of 
his life, through the communicated influence of 
his eternal spirit. Thus to know him, is to par- 
take of the new covenant, or true gospel dispen- 
sation; for therein it is declared, " They shall 
all know me, from the least of them to the great- 
est of them." 6 Accordingly the living christian 

1 Amos, iv. 13. 2 Jer. x. 23. 3 Rev. xxi. 14. 4 1 John i. 5, 
5 John, xvii, 3. 6 Jer. xxxi. 34. 



60 

has a certain sense of divine life in his own 
breast, which affords him instruction, strength 
and comfort; in such a manner, as he waits in 
faithfulness upon it, that he is under no abso- 
lute necessity to lean upon the teachings of 
other men ; yet when they come in a degree of 
the same life, he accepts them as instrumentally 
from God. 

This life of God in Christ is the very soul of 
Christianity ; without which the best forms and 
highest professions are but as members of a dead 
body, unavailable and unacceptable. " He that 
hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the 
son of God hath not life." 1 " Because I live/* 
saith he, " ye shall live also. At that day, ye 
shall know, that I am in my Father, and you in 
me, and I in you." 2 It is because he lives in, 
and communicates of his life to his spiritual 
followers, that they live also. Of these the true 
church, the adopted body of Christ under all 
denominations is composed. These alone are 
his peculiar heritage or clergy. This ecclesi- 
astical body of Christ, is a living body, ren- 
dered such by the inspiration of his life. He 
is the life common to all his true members. 3 Bv 
his vital influence he communicates a living 
sense of Truth to them, inclines them to him- 
self, and inspires them both with the desire and 
power of obedience ; and as they advance in 
faithfulness, he favours them with increasing 
tastes of divine grace and love, the savour of 
the holy unction, and the indwelling virtue and 
glory of his heavenly presence. " There is 

1 1 John, v. 12. 2 John, xiv. 19, 20. 3 Col. Hi. 4. 



61 

one body, and one spirit." 1 Was there not one 
and the same spirit throughout the whole church, 
it could not be one body, nor a living body, 
" Non potest vivere corpus Christi nisi de spi- 
ritu Christi" 2 saith Augustine ; The body of 
Christ cannot live but by the spirit of Christ. 
He who partakes not of the same spirit with the 
head, is no true member of the body. His spi- 
ritual influence is the precious blood, or spring 
of life which renders all his members living, 
and what gives life gives a sense of that life ; 
but though their life is most surely Jcnoicn to 
themselves, it is hid with Christ in God, 3 from 
the knowledge of those who remain unquicken- 
ed by it ; and hence ariseth all their opposition 
to it. 

3. We are all by nature strangers to this di- 
vine life, and we cannot by any means obtain 
it for ourselves. It is not of man's acquire- 
ment, but God's communication : and as far out 
of the reach of the most learned, as of the most 
illiterate. It is hid from the wise and prudent, 
in their own eyes, and revealed to those who 
are as babes, to the world's wisdom. It is not 
the high learned, but the humble that God 
teaches, and the meek that he guides in the paths 
of truth and judgment. Every one's eye there- 
fore ought to be humbly to God alone, and no{ 
to be fixed upon the wise, the scribe, the dis- 
puter of this world ; for God hath, by the power- 
ful simplicity and purity of his gospel dispen- 
sation, made foolish the wisdom of this world.* 



1 Eph. iv. 4. 2 In Joh. Tract. £6. 3 Col. iii. 3. 

4 1 Cor. i. 20. 

F 



62 

Yet so fond is the world of its own wisdom, 
that it has in great measure detruded the cross 
of Christ, and true spiritual religion, and erect- 
ed and supported this idol in its room. After 
this image the world has wondered ; and indeed 
it hath been a means wonderfully to blind, en- 
snare and deceive its worshippers, whose faith 
stands in the wisdom of men, and not in the 
power of God, 1 and is therefore the reverse of 
the faith of the gospel. 

4. From a due consideration of the debased 
and corrupt state of mankind, since the fall, and 
of the great and good end of their creation, it 
must evidently appear, that regeneration hath 
ever been the one thing needful ; a work es- 
sential for all to experience. And as the birth 
of the spirit cannot be brought forth by any thing 
but the spirit, so it must also be preserved in 
its growth and accomplishment by the spirit. 
Hence the abiding, or indwelling of the spirit, 
remains to be of absolute necessity to the rege- 
nerate ; that as their souls are quickened into 
the divine life by it, they may continue to live, 
move, and have their being as christians therein, 
and be sustained in a spiritual union, and bles- 
sed communion with their Maker. 

5. The essentiality of true religion hath ever 
been the same, primarily consisting in the life 
of God being raised up, and the love of God 
shed abroad in the heart, operating therein to its 
renovation, and to every virtuous and benevo- 
lent end. Whatever of externals or ceremo- 
nials have, at sundry times, been super-added 

1 X Cor. ii. 5. 



68 

by divine direction or command, were not in- 
tended to alter, or unsettle men from due and 
constand attention to vital, spiritual religion ; 
but when they were become greatly degene- 
rated from it, and darkened concerning it, the 
merciful Creator was pleased, by means suited 
to their estranged and carnal condition, to point 
it out to them, and lead them by signs and sym- 
bols towards it. Thus the Mosaic law was not 
meant to be the whole of religion to the Is- 
raelites, 1 or to supercede the internal religion of 
grace ; but only to be as a schoolmaster to 
bring them to Christ in spirit, in whom all is 
included and fulfilled, and whose presence was 
then with the faithful amongst them, who had 
spiritual communion with him ; for, according 
to scripture, " they did all eat the same spiritual 
meat, and did all drink the same spiritual 
drink ; for they drank of that spiritual rock that 
followed them ; and that rock was Christ" 2 

It is a vain thing to imagine, that religion 
ever wholly consisted in mode or form ; or that 
the All-perfect Lord at any time dispensed with 
the substance for the sake of the shadow ; or 
ever made any alteration therein, by diversity 
of institutions, from arbitrary will and pleasure, 
merely to exercise his sovereignty, as though 
power was a darling attribute, and more re- 
garded by him than wisdom, righteousness, and 
goodness ; or as though his attributes could he 
divided in him. No ; he is God and changeth 
not. His law is his own spirit of eternal rec- 
titude, and his retribution according to every 

1 Gal. iii. 24. 2 1 Cor. x. 3, 4. 



64 

man's state and works. The different modifi- 
cations that have appeared amongst men in 
point of religion, have been occasioned by the 
different alterations in the conditions of man- 
kind. The All-wise God hath directed some 
for a time, in condescension, for the good end 
above-mentioned ; and divers combinations of 
men have invented and enjoined abundance 
more, according to their own carnal misappre- 
hensions of spiritual things, or to advance their 
own sinister purposes. 

Exterior forms are but temporary matters. 
They are no essentials of true Christianity. The 
great author of it represents it as a well of wa- 
ter in man springing up into everlasting life. 1 
It radically ariseth from a living, abiding, in- 
creasing principle in man, of a pure, spiritual 
and heavenly nature. As this is cordially em- 
braced, it enlarges in the soul, expels the works 
and power of darkness, and produceth its own 
genuine fruits of humility, self-denial, patience, 
resignation to God, and trust in him alone; 
righteousness, holiness, meekness; gentleness, 
temperance, goodness, brotherly-kindness, cha- 
rity. It derives its origin from heaven, and 
leads to heaven. It carries the soul out of all 
formalities and false rests, up to the supreme 
good himself. It breaks down all our own self- 
will, and brings into perfect resignation to the 
divine will. In this humble contrited frame, 
and no other, can we sincerely and truly say, 
thy kingdom come ! thy will he done ! for whilst 
our wills stand in separation from the will of 

John.iv. M 



65 

God, we cannot address him in these terms 
with propriety ; or in spirit and truth. 

6. The pride of man is naturally averse to 
this abased and broken situation. It knows 
not how to submit to be, or to think itself, no- 
thing ; though it is worse than nothing. It 
would fain erect and plume itself upon some 
importance, some estimation, or deserving of its 
own ; yet all its pretences to merit are false 
and vain. Man being nothing as such, but 
what God has made him, and possessing no- 
thing but what he affords him, is wholly God's, 
and not his own ; and is therefore in duty bound 
to walk in obedience to him, every moment of 
his life, which is given him for that end. And 
seeing man has fallen short of his duty, and 
hath sinned against his sovereign by disobe- 
dience, it is neither in his power, by any thing 
he can perform, to merit heaven, nor to purchase 
remission for himself. He can neither undo 
what he has misdone, nor render to his Maker 
an equivalent for the trespasses he hath com- 
mitted against him. But such is the merciful 
goodness, and free grace of God towards his 
helpless creatures, that he offers both forgive- 
ness and felicity upon the most reasonable 
terms of repentance and amendment. To the 
willing and obedient, to him who is faithful 
unto death, to him that overcometh, through 
divine assistance, are the promises of eternal 
life. Upon the foundation of these free and 
voluntary offers of the divine goodness, and 
man's compliance with the conditions, stands 
his title. " Blessed are they that do his com- 
rriandments. that they may have right to the 



66 

tree of life, and may enter in through the gates 
into the city/? 1 

7. The laws and requisitions of God to man 
are in scripture often styled covenants. Not 
meaning that man has personally bound himself, 
on his part to perform the conditions, but that 
he is really in duty as deeply obliged, and as 
firmly bound to do the will of his Creator, as 
if he had voluntarily bound himself in the 
strongest obligations possible. The reason is, 
man owes his very being, and all the good he 
receives, spiritual and temporal, to his Maker, 
to whom he stands indebted for all, and who 
therefore hath an unquestionable right to claim 
all affection, gratitude, and obedience from him; 
and more especially as it is all for his own ever- 
lasting advantage. There is also an internal 
spiritual covenant, a divine connection, which 
the heart of man feels, in his faithfulness, to his 
Creator. The spirit of life in Christ Jesus, 
which sets free from the bonds of sin and death, 
and unites the soul to its Saviour, in the pow- 
erful covenant of divine love. By this, through 
faith, it becomes engrafted into Christ ; and by 
obedience it remains in him as a branch in the 
vine ; or is incorporated with him as its head ; 
for " he that is joined unto the Lord is one 
spirit." 2 Of this vital union regenerate souls 
have a certain sense, in proportion to their pro- 
gress. " Hereby know we that we dwell in 
him, and he in us, because he hath given us of 
his spirit" 3 — " Hereby we know that he abid- 

1 Rev. xxii. 14. 2 1 Cor. vi. 17. 3 1 John, iv. IS. 



67 

eth in us, by the spirit which he hath given 
us." 1 Hence it is clear, that the gift of the spi 
rit communicates this intelligence. 



CHAP. VIII. 

1. Religion the same both to the Learned and Un- 
learned — The Holy Spirit requisite to every Man, 
as the universal Reformer. 2. It was such to the 
Israelites, and, 3. The best part of their Divine 
Legation. 4. Why Statutes of an outward and 
temporary nature were added. 5. They are taught 
to look through them to Christ, of whose Spirit 
they partook. 6. But it was not dispensed to them 
in that degree of purity and splendour with which 
it broke forth at the Christian sera. 7*. How this 
was witnessed to by the law. 8. How by the Pro- 
phets. 9. The Spirit was in all ages administered, 
and the truly humble favoured with its indwelling. 

1. Religion here, and salvation hereafter, 
are as much the concern and duty of the illite- 
rate and ignorant, as of the wise and learned. 
And as those are by much the greater number, 
religious duty must undoubtedly consist in some- 
thing equally attainable and practicable by all ; 
for God is no respecter of persons. It cannot 
lie essentially in literal knowledge, nor in any- 
peculiar mode of education ; for these are the 
lot of few, in comparison of the whole of man- 
kind. Happiness being the end of man's crea- 
tion, and the universal indispensable concern of 
every man, the effective means of regeneration 
and salvation must be attainable by every man. 

1 1 John, iii. 24. 



68 

Nothing but the omnipresent and all-effective 
spirit of God can be this means ; for nothing 
else is universal/ nor any way adequate to the 
work. The spirit of God therefore, being ne- 
cessary to every man, is afforded to every man, 
by him who with-holds nothing necessary. 

This holy operative spirit, Solomon, under 
its influence, with great propriety, styles wis- 
dom, and represents it, in familiar language, as 
calling upon mankind, to turn at its reproofs, 1 
with a promise, to pour out its spirit unto them. 
He also impleads those as fools who reject or 
slight its reproofs, or convictions, in their con- 
sciences ; by which he shews, it accompanies 
them even in the streets and places of con- 
course. 2 Recounting the great works of this 
spirit of wisdom, be elsewhere testifies, " She 
preserved the first formed Father of the world, 
that was created alone, and brought him out of 
his fall." 3 She was not only his preserver be- 
fore his fall, but his re-quickener and restorer 
out of that death, he through transgression fell 
into ; and seeing the whole rational progeny of 
Mam are naturally under the like necessity of 
being born of the spirit, its administration is of- 
fered to all, in due degrees ; and every indivi- 
dual in all ages, who have experienced the new- 
birth, by which right reformation is wrought, 
have known it to be effected by the operation of 
the spirit. This the wise author above-cited 
witnesseth, in his acknowledgment to Almighty 
goodness ; when he saith, " Thy council who 
hath known, except thou give wisdom, and send 

1 Prov. i. 2 Verse, 20. 21. 3 Wisd. x. 1. 



69 

thy holy Spirit from above ? For so the ways of 
them who lived on the earth were reformed, 
and men were taught the things that are pleas- 
ing unto thee, and were saved through wisdom"* 1 * 

2. Evident tokens of internal religion, and 
the immediate manifestations of the spirit for 
that end, appear throughout both the Old Tes- 
tament and the New. Before the flood, the old 
world was favoured with the manifestation of 
the holy spirit, as it is implied, Gen. vi. 3. "My 
spirit shall not always strive with," or rather in, 
" man." For so Hebreans say it ought to be 
rendered. And indeed, where could the spirit 
so properly strive as in the soul of man, where 
the seat of corruption is, and to which the sug- 
gestions of evil are applied ? And to what end 
should it strive with them, but to bring them to 
repentance and reformation, and to become, 
through their obedience, the kingdom, or ruling 
power of God in them. 

Renovation of heart by the holy spirit, and 
its genuine fruits of repentance towards God, 
faith in him, and obedience to him, was the prin- 
cipal and essential part of religion also among 
the Israelites. Deut. xxx. 10. Moses repre- 
sents the conditions on the performance of which 
they should be entitled to the promises. " If 
thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord 
thy God, to keep his commandments and his 
statutes, which are written in this book of the 
law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy God, 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul." 
These are the terms ; first, that they should keep 

> Wisd*ix. 17,18. 



70 

the law ; this was the external and legal part 
of their duty. Second, that they should turn 
their whole hearts and souls to God ; this was 
the internal and evangelical part. He leaves 
them not here in a state of uncertainty, but pro- 
ceeds to shew them to what their inward atten- 
tion should be turned. " For," saith he, " this 
commandment which I command thee this day/' 
or this which I command thee to turn thine 
heart unto, " is not hidden from thee, neither is 
it far off. It is not in heaven that thou shouldst 
say, who shall go up for us to heaven, and 
bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? 
Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldst 
say, who shall go over the sea for us, and bring 
it unto us, that we may hear it and do it ? but 
the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, 
and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." 1 The 
apostle assumes and explains this passage, 
Mom. x. 6, 7> 8. " The righteousness which is 
of faith speaketh on this wise, " Say not in 
thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven ? that 
is to bring Christ down from above. Or, 
who shall descend into the deep? that is to 
bring up Christ again from the dead. But what 
saith it ? The word is nigh thee, even in thy 
mouth, and in thy heart. That is the word of 
faith which we preach." 

By this explanation of the apostle it appears ; 
1st, that, besides the law, Moses then preached 
to Israel the same word of faith, which himself 
and his evangelical brethren did. 2d, That 
this word is Christ in spirit, calling for atteu- 

1 Wisd.ix. 11, &c. 






71 

tion and obedience in the heart, or conscience 
of man, in erder to effect his restoration and 
salvation. 3d, This is not a local, or tempo- 
rary, but an inward visitation of the Saviour of 
mankind, by his spirit in the heart. 

The word of faith is the word of truth, the 
word of the everlasting gospel ; and not a com- 
position of letters. The term word y like many 
other words, is used in various senses ; as a 
speech or saying, an engagement, a report, a 
command, an exhortation, an instruction, &c. 
because these are composed of words. And as 
men use to convey their sense to one another by 
words, so God conveys his to men by Christ, 
who is peculiarly and emphatically styled in 
scripture, the ivord of God; 1 and as the way 
men receive words from the mouths of one 
another is by hearing, so the manner by which 
the soul receives internal instruction, reproof, 
&c. from the Holy Spirit, is metaphorically 
called hearing. Thus faith, which is the gift 
of God, is said to come by hearing, and hearing 
by the word of God. 2 That is, I apprehend, 
the internal sense itself is opened in the soul, 
as well as subjects communicated, by the spirit 
of Christ. 

3. Hence we see, the divine legation to the 
Jews, consisted not in the outward written law 
only. Nor were they kept in ignorance of in- 
ward spiritual religion, or of a future state of 
rewards and punishments. For, if so, to what 
purpose did Moses press the consideration of 
their latter end upon them, with so much fer- 

1 John, 1. and Rev. xix. 13. *Rom. x. 17 



72 

vency ? " O that they were wise, that they un- 
derstood this, that they would consider their lat- 
ter end /" l What material consideration should 
their latter end, or time of death, be of, to such 
as know no better but that it would be the pe- 
riod of their existence? Or, why should he com- 
mand their attention to the living word of faith, 
Christ in the heart, as well as to the written 
code ? He was an eminently inspired prophet, 
and well knew that salvation is by Christ alone ; 
and that his inward spiritual law is as prefer- 
able to the exterior one, as the substance is to 
the shadow. Obedience to the outward tempo- 
ral law, had outward and temporal promises ; 
but obedience to the inward spiritual law, hath 
promises of an internal and eternal nature. By 
the works of the first no man could be justified; 
but by the operation of the last, sanctification is 
wrought, and salvation experienced. Moses 
was a type of Christ, and the temporal law with 
its temporal rewards, a type of the law of the 
spirit of life in Chxist Jesus, and its eternal re- 
compence. 

4. But it may be queried ; if the spiritual 
law was always afforded, what occasion was 
there for the addition of temporal statutes? 
Answ. The Israelites by living under servi- 
tude to a most superstitious and idolatrous peo- 
ple, were become prone to superstition and idol- 
atry themselves ; " They were mingled among 
the heathen," saith the Psalmist, " and learn- 
ed their works ; and they served their idols, 
which were a snare unto them." 2 Out of this 

1 Deut xxxii. 29. 2 Psal. cvi. 35, 36. 



73 

idolatry they were to be brought, and by their 
obedience to the only true God, were to become 
an example to the nations round them, to in- 
fluence their return likewise. Though all had 
the word nigh in the heart, yet having lost the 
right sense of what it is, the law was added be- 
cause of their transgression and corruption, till 
the coming of Christ in the flesh. 1 

Seeing their habitual attachment to the forms 
and superstitions of paganism, was too strong 
to admit of their being willingly and clearly 
brought of them at once, divine wisdom conde- 
scended to meet them in the state they were 
in, and to proceed gradually with them, by al- 
lowing them some forms and ceremonies like to 
those they had been inured to ; but more regu- 
lar and significant. The Supreme Lord of the 
universe first observes to them ; " I am the Lord 
thy God which have brought thee out of the land 
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage ;" and 
then commands, "Thou shalt have no other 
gods before me," 2 Thus he draws their atten- 
tion off from the idols of the heathen, and places 
it wholly upon himself, as the sole object of 
their adoration and obedience. And to give 
one instance for all ; as the heathens, whose 
manners they had imbibed, were accustomed to 
swear by their false gods, he did not see fit to 
prohibit all solemn oaths at once, but confined 
them to swear by himself alone, exclusive of 
the pagan idols ; not requiring the perfect prac- 
tice of the christian precept, Swear not at all, 
neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any 

1 Gal. iii.19. 2 Exod.xXc 
G 



other oath, of them, whilst not in a christian 
state, nor under its clear dispensation ; but only 
entering them into the path appointed for them 
towards it, and to prepare the way for its es- 
tablishment. Thus he made the law a tempo- 
rary expedient, to bring them gradually towards 
the practice of that perfect religion, he intended 
in due season to introduce, and to set up in its 
purity, for all men to come into, and to walk in. 
5. In the meantime, the sovereign wisdom 
was pleased to sound an alarm, and set up an 
ensign to the rest pf mankind, amongst the de- 
scendants of Israel. He wrought wonders for 
their deliverance and support ; and, besides 
many excellent moral precepts, dispensed to 
them a form of knowledge and of the truth in 
the law ; x symbolically denoting the nature and 
manner of redemption and salvation through his 
Son, by many significant types, allegories, and 
similitudes, accommodated to the religious 
modes, and apprehensions they had espoused ; 
which, though semblances of a distant, because 
of an exterior kind, yet were intended, and 
wisely adapted to be to the superstitiously dis- 
posed, as a schoolmaster 2 to lead them gradu- 
ally to Christ. That is, to the knowledge of 
Christ ; then to come outwardly as a propitiatory 
sacrifice for the sins of mankind, and also to the 
knowledge of Christ within, the hope of glory, 
as the actual sanctifier and Saviour of men. For 
though they were all baptized unto Moses in 
the cloud, 3 or dipped into his exterior dispensa- 
tion as under a veil ; yet the spiritually-mind- 

1 Rom. il. 20. 2 Gal. iii. 24. 3 1 Cor. x. 2. 






75 

ed amongst them, were enabled to penetrate 
through the veil to the internal reality, and 
" did," as before observed, " all eat the same 
spiritual meaty and did all drink the same spi- 
ritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual 
rock that followed them, and that rock was 
Christ." 1 

Still further to assist them, divine goodness, 
at times, inspired divers of the most regenerate, 
and most devoted of both sexes with the spirit 
of prophecy; and engaged them to preach the 
necessity of righteousness and holiness to them ; 
and to direct their view, through the figures and 
outward similitudes of the ceremonial law, to 
the truth signified by them, and plainly to in- 
struct them in, and exhort them to inward and 
spiritual religion ; which was the ultimate in- 
tent of the Mosaic, and every other dispensa- 
tion of God to mankind. For the rituals of the 
law were not instituted to supercede but to 
serve, as an index to the law of the spirit of 
life in Christ Jesus. 

I do not apprehend, that the mystery of god- 
liness, and its internal life and virtue, was ever 
intended by divine wisdom to be concealed from 
mankind ; but was always held forth, though 
sometimes obscurely under typical forms ; on 
account of the numbers of degenerate minds, 
who were too much prepossessed and darkened, 
to behold the splendour of the gospel in its clear 
manifestation. For, throughout all generations, 
to as many as rightly received Christ, he gave 
power to become the sons of God ; 2 yet the spi~ 

1 1 Cor. x. 2, 3, 4. * John, I, 13. 



J 



76 

ritual powerful gospel of our Lord, was not so 
publicly promulgated, without some kind of 
ceremonial shadows, till the full display of the 
christian dispensation, at the time of the Jewish 
feast of Pentecost ; when the disciples, waiting 
together in obedience to the command of Christ, 
were, according to his promise, baptized with 
his one true permanent baptism ; that of the 
Holy Ghost, which fulfils and supercedes all 
other baptisms, and remains the standing ordi- 
nance of God to his church for ever. Then by 
revelation was the mystery conspicuously and 
powerfully disclosed : " which," saith the apos- 
tle, '* in other ages was not made known unto 
the sons of men, as," or in the same degree, 
" it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and 
prophets, by the spirit ; that the gentiles should 
be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, smd par- 
takers of his promise in Christ by the gospel." 1 
— "For now the righteousness of God without 
the law, is manifested, being witnessed by the 
law and the prophets." 2 

7. The law witnessed to the gospel ; 1st, by 
its various offerings and sacrifices ; pointing out, 
and keeping in remembrance, that the Messiah 
should come in the iiesh, in order " to put away 
sin by the sacrifice of himself. 5 * 3 This was the 
real use of the sin and trespass offerings ; for, 
" It is not possible, that the blood of bulls and 
goats should take away sins." 4 No ; they had 
reference to the precious blood of Christ, both 
corporeal and spiritual; who, "by one offering, 
hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," 5 

1 Eph. iii. 5, 6. 2 Rom.iii. 21. 3 Heb.i*. 26. 4 Ibid. X, 4' 
5 Heb. x. 14 



77 

thereby putting a final period to the legal sacri- 
fices. 2d, The law witnessed to the gospel, 
by its divers sprinklings, washings, and purifi- 
cations, which had no more efficacy towards the 
removal of sin and guilt, than the blood of bulls 
and goats ; but must be understood to denote 
the necessity of real holiness, and to signify the 
spiritual administration of Christ; who gave 
himself for us, that he might redeem us, not 
only from guilt and condemnation, but also jTrofrc 
all iniquity, the cause of them; and purify unto 
himself a peculiar, or sanctified, people, zeal- 
ous of good works. 1 This he doth by the wash- 
ing of regeneration, and the renewing of the 
Holy Ghost. 2 

8. The prophets witnessed to the gospel, 1st, 
by their predictive declarations concerning the 
coming, sufferings, and offices of the Messiah. 
2d, By instructing the people in the necessity of 
internal, essential, effectual religion, in prefer- 
ence to the written law, even during the time 
that stood in force ; as that weightier part and 
superior duty, which ever necessarily remains 
throughout ail generations. 

Samuel saith, " To obey is better than sa- 
crifice." 3 Hosea, I desired mercy, and not sa- 
crifice," or not in comparison with it, " and the 
knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings." 4 
David acknowledges to the Lord, " Thou de- 
sirest not sacrifice, else, would I give it : Thou 
delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices 
of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a con- 
trite heart, O God, thou wilt not despire." 5 In 

1 Tit. ii. 14. 2 Ibid, iii. 5. 3 1 Sam. xv. 22. 4 Hos. vi. Q 
'Psl.li, 16, If. 



78 

Lis pathetic address to the Almighty, verse 6. he 
saith, " Thou desirest truth in the inward parts;" 
and vers. 10, he prays, " Create in me a clean 
heart, and renew a right spirit within me." 
Micah queries, " Will the Lord be pleased 
with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands 
of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for 
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the 
sin of my soul?" 1 And then answers; " Ho 
hath shewed thee, O man, what is good ; and 
what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 
justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with 
thy God?" 2 Moses exhorteth the children of 
Israel, to circumcise the foreskin of their heart; 
and told them, " The Lord thy God will cir- 
cumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, 
to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, 
and with all thy soul." 3 Here he shewed them, 
though they had received the sign of circumci- 
sion,* the reality most required was that of the 
heart in the spirit ; which is the work of re- 
generation, the christian circumcision of the 
apostle ; who asserts) " He is not a Jew who is 
one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which 
is of the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one in- 
wardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, 
in the spirit and not in the letter." 5 He also 
observes to the Colossians ; that in Christ they 
were circumcised, " with the circumcision made 
without hands, in putting off the body of the sins 
of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ." 6 
That the necessity of the knowledge and love 

* Micah, vi. 7, 8. 2 Deut.x.l6. 3 Ibi<Lxxx.6 *Rom, 
iv. 11. * Ibid. ii. 28, 29. • Col, ii. 1 L 



70 

t)f (rod, and of a change from sin to holiness, 
by the internal circumcision of the spirit, was 
both taught and pressed upon the Jews, as that 
without which the observance of the law would 
little avail them ; nay, the prophet Isaiah 1 plain- 
ly shews, that the latter without the former, ren- 
dered the practice of it, though divinely insti- 
tuted, abominable even to its institutor. 

9. Regeneration, or the circumcision of the 
heart in the spirit, being always required, the 
spirit by which alone it is wrought, must have 
been always dispensed to mankind for that end. 
This is the gracious gift of the Father Almighty, 
through the Redeemer ; to whom the psalmist 
saith, " Thou hast ascended on high ; thou 
hast led captivity captive; thou hast received 
gifts for men ; yea for the rebellious also ; that 
the Lord God might dwell among them." 2 This 
was the blessed experience of those that hum- 
bled themselves under his mighty hand. " For 
thus saith the high and lofty One that inha- 
biteth eternity, whose name is Holy ; I dwell in 
the high and holy place, with him also that is 
of a contrite and humble spirit ; to revive the 
spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of 
the contrite ones." 3 



1 Isa.i. 11, to 19. and Chap. IxyL 3,4* 2 Psal. Ixviii.lS, 
3 Isa. lvii. 15, 



80 



CHAP. IX. 

1. The Mosaic Law a new form of Theocracy, there- 
fore introduced by miraculous appearances. The 
Abolition of the Law, and the setting up of the 
Gospel in its genuine purity, was necessarily at- 
tended with equal demonstration of the like won- 
derful powers. 2. All the primitive Ministers had 
the Spirit, but their Gifts were different. All were 
not workers of miracles, therefore these were extra 
powers, not essential to an inspired Ministry. In- 
spiration always requisite to true Ministry ; but 
Miracles not. 3 and 4. Miracles were temporary 
sanctions requisite to the Abolition of the Law, 
and Institution of the Gospel, but not essential to 
be continued for its support. Yet under all Dis- 
pensations, at times were occasionally wrought. 
The want of them no proof a Minister is not in- 
spired. 5. The Institution of Christianity once 
confirmed by them, the future Promulgation of its 
Doctrine stands not in need of their continued re- 
petition. The excellency of the Gospel consists in 
its being a ministration of the Spirit, clear of all 
exterior signs and shadows. 6. True Christians 
are baptised by one Spirit into one body. 7. The 
Primitives not opened at once into the perfect 
clearness of the Gospel, but gradually enlighten- 
ed. 8. Hence many Professers to this day, mis- 
take the first initiatory mixture for the complete 
state of Christianity. 9. This consists in the 
total removal of outward signs and shadows, and 
the clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness it- 
self. The Vanity of superceding this by human 
Learning. 

1. After the wonders of creation and provi- 
dence were displayed, in producing and estab- 
lishing the stupendous system of external na- 



81 

ture, its great author was pleased, at distant 
periods, to shew forth the visible effects of his 
miraculous power, amongst the sons of men ; but 
when the time came wherein he saw fit to recal 
the degenerate world from the corruptions it 
was immersed in, by a public assumption and 
manifestation of his own just dominion amongst 
a people chosen for that purpose, he raised up 
the children of Israel as an exemplar to the 
rest of mankind. He brought them out of their 
Egyptian bondage by an high hand, and 
through many admirable strokes of his power; 
and upon his institution of the Mosaic law ; 
which being the introduction of a new form of 
theocracy, unknown to the world, it was requi- 
site it should be attended by such extraordinary 
marks of divine authority, as might be sufficient 
to authenticate and enforce it, as coming from 
himself. He therefore, on that great occasion, 
appeared to the Israelites in a manner answer- 
able to his Almighty Sovereignty ; and also to 
the nature and solemnity of that law ; which 
being a ministration of condemnation, was 
ushered in by the most dreadful and astonishing 
tokens of terror ; with thunderings and light- 
nings, blackness, darkness, and tempest; the 
mountain flaming with fire, the alarming sound 
of the trumpet waxing louder and louder, and 
the voice of words so terrible, that not only the 
people, but the whole mountain quaked exceed- 
ingly. This being an obvious, and most solemn 
act of the Supreme Legislator of the universe, no 
less authority than his own, could either abolish, 
or alter it : and when the period arrived, where- 
in he saw fit to set aside, and supercede this law 



8& 

i>f outward and carnal ordinances, by bringing 
forward into full view, and sole obligation, the 
substance pointed to by it, his spiritual and 
more excellent covenant ; it was necessary that 
it should appear to be done, by clear demon- 
strations of the same sovereign authority, in as 
public a manner, and at the most proper season 
for it. Accordingly, the gracious dispensation 
of the gospel was introduced by evidences of 
divine authority equally extraordinary, and 
equally suited to its placid and salutary nature. 
Besides the numerous predictions of prophets 
concerning the Messiah, the advent of his fore- 
runner the Baptist, and the miraculous concep- 
tion of our Saviour by the blessed virgin ; wit- 
ness the many wonderful works he performed, 
the unaccountable darkness, and the rending of 
the veil of the temple throughout from top to 
bottom, upon his giving up the ghost ; denoting 
the separation, conclusion, and passing away of 
all sign and ceremony, and the disclosure of the 
substance in spirit and truth ; his astonishing 
resurrection, and that of the bodies of buried 
saints which arose and went into the city ; and 
his visible ascension, attended with the glorious 
ministration of angels. After all this, at the 
time of the Jewish feast of Pentecost, annually 
observed in memorial of the giving forth of the 
law on Mount Sinai, the apostles and disciples, 
male and female, being assembled together ac- 
cording to the Lord's command, the holy spirit 
gave a two-fold demonstration of its advent, as 
the administrative power of the christian dis- 
pensation, then to commence without any mix- 
ture of a legal or shadowy nature 5 first, by 



83 

the appearance of cloven tongues, as of fire, 
which sate upon each of them. Second, by 
filling their hearts with the Holy Ghost, 1 to 
such a degree that they began to speak with 
other tongues, or in other languages besides 
their own, as the spirit gave them utterance* 
Indued with heavenly wisdom and power, and 
inflamed with divine love and fervour, they were 
now qualified to put in practice the commission 
before given, in a verbal manner, by the great 
Lord and law-giver. To divers of them were 
likewise added, the miraculous powers of heal- 
ing all manner of diseases ; the dumb were 
made to speak, the deaf to hear, the lame to 
walk, the blind to see ; demoniacs were dispos- 
sessed, and the dead were raised and restored 
to life. 

But these extraordinary powers were neither 
conferred upon all, nor confined to the apostles 
only ; yet a measure of the same spirit was 
communicated to every one of them, women as 
well as men ; otherwise Peter's application of 
the prophecy of Joel had not been true. They 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost, but differ- 
ently gifted, and qualified by it, for different 
services, according to the will and wisdom of 
the great dispenser. " To one is given by the 
spirit the word of wisdom; to another the 
word of knowledge by the same spirit ; to an- 
other faith by the same spirit ; to another the 
gift of healing by the same spirit ; to another 
the working of miracles by the same spirit ; to 
another prophecy ; to another discerning of spi- 

1 Acts, ii. 



8*± 

rits ; to another divers kinds of tongues : to an- 
other the interpretation of tongues. But all 
these w orketh that one and the self same spirit, 
dividing to every man severally as he will." 1 

Hence it appears, that what are commonly 
called miracles are not necessary or essential to 
divine inspiration, but only adjunctive opera- 
tions of the spirit thereto, which have been oc- 
casionally super-added; and therefore may either 
totally cease, when the occasions for which 
they were added are over, or continue to be 
used as it shall appear requisite to divine wis- 
dom. When therefore the gospel was so far 
spread and established, in the parts then in- 
tended, that the end for which those extraordi- 
nary powers were afforded was answered, they 
were gradually withdrawn from the church; 
which was left, in the general, upon its proper 
and permanent bottom, the immediate inspiration 
of the holy spirit. No necessity therefore can 
be pleaded for the constant continuance of mira- 
culous powers, or such a spirit of prophecy as 
signifies a peculiar gift of foretelling future 
events; but only of those supernatural influ- 
ences, which are requisite to enlighten, quicken, 
regenerate, sanctify, bring forth the fruits of the 
spirit in man, enable him to fill up his duty, 
and finally prepare him for a celestial mansion. 
These are indispensably necessary to be con- 
tinued. They are of moral consideration, and 
immediately influential to the prepai*ation and 
salvation of every man, which miracle and pre- 
diction are not. 

1 1 Cor. xii. 8. &c. 



1 



85 

3. Notwithstanding manifest appearances of 
extraordinary power were added, both to the 
introduction of the law, and that of the gospel, 
they are not to be considered as parts of either, 
but as sanctions requisite to their institution ; 
so I believe, some divine exertions of a miracu- 
lous nature have been evidenced, at times, un- 
der both administrations, as well as before them; 
either for the convincement of doubtful persons, 
or to give additional weight and authority to the 
ministry of some inspired servants of (rod, 
amongst those present with them, or to encou- 
rage and confirm them in their service. Though 
I doubt not but this hath sometimes been the 
case since the first century, and may remain to 
be so to the end of time, for neither the power 
nor goodness of the Almighty is shortened ; yet 
I am also of opinion, that miraculous appear- 
ances have been less public, and more sparingly 
afforded since the first century than before it ; 
which may be in part owing to the declension 
of the professing churches. I also believe, ac- 
cording to the prophetic declarations of the 
apostles ; that under the declined and darkened 
state of both teachers and hearers, many strange 
signs, and lying wonders have been, and still 
may be suffered to be imposed upon the credu- 
lity of a disobedient people, by false pretenders, 
for the support of a corrupt interest, and the ag- 
grandisement of the conductors. Undoubtedly, 
those mysterious delusions have been abundant- 
ly more numerous for many centuries past, than 
the exertions of divine power in an extraordi- 
nary way. 

4. The continuation of exterior miracles is 

H 



86 

not essential to the ministration of the gospel ; 
for was it so, Christianity could not subsist with- 
out them. Yet, though they are not of abso- 
lute necessity thereunto, they may be occasion- 
ally used, or not, as the Sovereign Wisdom sees 
meet. But that they are still constantly, or pe- 
riodically continued in any particular church, 
as a peculiar mark of its being the only true 
church of Christ, above all others, I find no 
warrant to believe. Pretensions of this kind, 
naturally put thinking minds upon looking for 
a superior excellency in the doctrines, and prac- 
tices of such a church ; and when they find it 
abound in superstition and pomp, coercive impo- 
sition, proud hierarchy, craft, lucre, and idolatry, 
even bordering upon polytheism ; for what else 
is the adoration of saints, and sinners under that 
title, by attributing a kind of omnipresence, and 
influence in the court of heaven to them ? When 
they find these, and other monstrous absurdities 
in the established doctrines of such a church, 
instead of the simplicity, purity, humility, love, 
and life of the gospel ; what can they conclude 
of those pretensions, but that they are the de- 
ceitful juggles of imposture, and the legends of 
folly ? The very ends most of them are calcu- 
lated to answer, sufficiently evidence their false- 
hood, and shew, whatever they are, that they 
are not divine. 

It doth not appear, that in the primitive age 
of Christianity, those who were sometimes at- 
tended with miraculous powers, were always so 
accompanied in their ministry; nor that all in- 
spired ministers were ever enabled to work mi- 
racles in the sight of the people. Seeing there- 



87 

fore it is evident, that these extraordinary pow- 
ers are not essential to an inspired ministry, they 
are not the necessary proofs of it ; nor the 
want of them an argument that a minister is not 
inspired. But though these are not essential 
to Christianity, immediate inspiration is consti- 
tutionally so. The excellency of the gospel 
dispensation is, that it is not a mixture of sign 
and substance, as that of the Jews was, nor a tem- 
porary, but a standing ministration of the spirit. 
5. Seeing no further change of dispensations 
is ever to be made, nor any other doctrine to be 
preached, but that of our Saviour and his apos- 
tles ; which, upon its commencement, i*eceived a 
miraculous confirmation sufficient for its lasting 
establishment, people are not now to expect, or 
call for miracles from those who preach the chris- 
tian doctrine ; but to turn to, and attend upon 
that divine principle pointed out in the scrip- 
tures, as manifested in the breast of each indi- 
vidual, the ministration of Christ in spirit. This 
will give the' sincere and humble receiver more 
clear and particular demonstration than outward 
signs and tokens could do ; for the powers 
whence they proceed may be disputed, but the 
internal evidence of the light of Christ, the life 
of men, as rightly waited for, and adhered to, 
leaves no doubt in the mind concerning its di- 
vine nature and authority. Hence JR. Barclay 
asserts, in the words of the primitive protestants, 
there is no need now of outward miracles to 
avouch the doctrines of the gospel ; yet acknow- 
ledges, that some did appear upon its revival 
in the last century. But to return. 

The apostle, 2 Cor. in, shews that the mini- 



88 

siration of the gospel far excels that of the law, 
and that its excellency stands in its spirituality. 
Having spoken of the law, verse 7- he subjoins, 
" How shall not the ministration of the spirit 
be rather glorious ? For if the ministration of 
condemnation be glory, much more doth the 
ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. 
For even that which was made glorious, had 
no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory 
which excelleth. For if that which was done 
away was glorious, much more that which re- 
maineth is glorious." 1 Why is the gospel thus 
super-eminent above the law, seeing that was a 
divine institution ? Principally, because it is not 
an outward code as the law was, but an inward 
law of life, 2 , " written, not with ink, but with 
the spirit of the living God ; not in tables of 
stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart ; and be- 
cause it makes able ministers, not of the letter, 
but of the spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the 
spirit giveth life." 3 

No man can be a true christian without the 
spirit of Christ ; for, " If any man hath not 
the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." 4 

Every christian ought to experience the in- 
dwelling of the spirit. " Know ye not that 
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, 
which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye 
are not your own." 5 

It is requisite to every christian, that he should 
know the spirit to be his guide and leader ; for, 
only " as many as are led by the spirit of God, 
are the sons of God." 6 

1 2 Cor. iii. 8, 9, 10, 11. 2 2 Cor. iii. 3. 3 Verse, 6. 
4 Rom. viii. 9. 5 1 Cor. vi. 19. 6 Rom. viii. 14, 



89 

No man can be a sheep of Christ without a 
distinguishing sense of the spirit of Christ. " I 
am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, 
and am known of mine" — " My sheep hear 
my voice } and I know them, and they follow 
me." — " The sheep follow him, for they know 
his voice, and a stranger they will not follow." 1 
The voice of Christ is the manifestation of his 
spirit to the soul. 

Without being born again of the spirit, no 
man can enter the kingdom of God, 2 and with- 
out the spirit, no man can be born of it ; conse- 
quently the spirit is altogether as requisite to us 
as it could be to the primitives. It is no more 
in our ability to regenerate and prepare our- 
selves for the kingdom, than it was in theirs. 
No powers, natural or acquired, in our unrege- 
nerate state, are sufficient for so great a purpose ; 
and to enable us truly to say, with the people 
of God in former times, " Lord, thou wilt or- 
dain peace for us ; for thou hast wrought all 
our works in us." 3 

Without the spirit, no man can be a minister 
of the spirit. The apostolic direction is, " As 
every man hath received the gift, even so mi- 
nister the same one to another, as good stewards 
of the manifold grace of God. If any man 
speak, let him speak as the oraclefe of God ; if 
any man minister, let him do it as of the ability 
which God giveth ; that God in all things may 
be glorified through Jesus Christ." 4 

6. Every true believer and faithful follower 
of Christ, in the apostolic age, received a por« 

1 John, x. 14, 27, 45* * John, iii. 3 Isaiah, xxvi. Ifi. 
4 I Pet. iv. 10 r ll. 



90 

tion of the same holy spirit which the prophets 
and apostles did, though in less degrees ; " for," 
saith Paul, " by one spirit are we all baptised 
into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, 
whether Ave be bond or free ; and have been all 
made to drink into one spirit." 1 This one spi- 
rit rendered them one body, and joined them to 
the one living head. " There is one body and 
one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of 
your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 
one God and Father of all, who is above all, 
and through all, and in you all." 2 Thus, ac- 
cording to the several measures allotted them, 
they were all partakers of the same holy spirit ; 
and as it was then, so it is now, and ever must 
be in the true spiritual universal church of 
Christ. 

7. The gospel sun arose in great splendour; 
yet it appeared not in its full meridian at once, to 
any. The openings of truth in the minds of the 
primitive christians, apostles as well as others, 
were gradual. As they advanced forward in 
the new nature they saw further and further. 
For a time, they occasionally circumcised, en- 
tered into vows, anointed with oil, baptised 
with John's baptism ; all which were of an ex- 
ternal and legal nature. Nay, at first, they 
perceived not the Holy Ghost was to be given 
to Gentiles as well as Jews ; though Joel had 
plainly prophesied it should be poured out up- 
on all flesh. But afterwards, as their concern 
continued to press forward, they were led be- 
yond the first initiatory mixture of things; they 

1 1 Cor. xii. 13. 3 Eph. iv. 4, 5, 6. 



91 

saw clearly and declare d, thai the holy spirit 
fell upon the Gentiles as well as Jews j 1 that 
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avail- 
eth f that a good conscience ariseth not from the 
practice of exterior rights ; 3 that the unction 
from the holy one is altogether sufficient to give 
instruction and true judgment ;* that the sav- 
ing baptism is not that which can reach no 
deeper than the ontside of the flesh, but that of 
the spirit ; which baptises the heart, and pro- 
duceth the answer of a good conscience towards 
God, by the resurrection of Christ, or his spi- 
ritual arising in or upon the soul. 5 

8. It is no uncommon thing to hear the apos- 
tolic age styled the infancy of Christianity ; and 
so it was in point of time, and also in respect to 
the temporary continuation of a few exteriors ; 
not immediately seen through, and afterwards 
retained for a season, in condescension to those 
new believers, who had been so much attached 
to symbolical practices, they could not readily 
be brought to disuse them. And, in our day, 
many of the present leaders and rulers, in divers 
of the most numerous churches professing the 
christian name, seem to imagine ; that though 
the assistance of the Holy Ghost was necessary 
to the introduction, and support of the christian 
religion in primitive times, it has no need of it 
now. It is become so matured by man's wis- 
dom and learning, which had no share in its 
origin, that it is fully capable to go alone. So 
that now it is, in great measure, become another 



1 Acts, xi. 18. 2 Gal. v. 6. 3 Heb. ix. 9. 4 1 John, ii, 
20,27. 5 lPetiii. 21. 



92 

thing, and stands upon another foundation, than 
formerly. Though it still calls Christ its head, 
and accounts itself his body, it receives no im- 
mediate direction from him, nor feels the circu- 
lation of his blood, which is the life and virtue 
of true religion. Thus deservedly incurring 
the reproof of the apostle implied in this query ; 
" Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made 
perfect by the flesh ? m In truth, it too evidently 
appears, in a general view, that the professed 
christian churches, instead of being in the maturi- 
ty of Christianity, are greatly in the decline from 
that state ; or they could not be so insensible, 
nor durst appear so opposite to the life of reli- 
gion, as to reject and decry the vital part of it, 
and treat it as extinct, unnecessary, or at least 
insensibly to be now received ; as too many of 
their leaders and members do. Surely a church 
in this condition, is properly entitled to that ad- 
dress of the spirit, to the degenerate church of 
Sardis ; " I know thy works, that thou hast a 
name that thou livest and art dead." 2 Yet, not- 
withstanding this seems to be too generally the 
case, and that the religion of many high profes- 
sors is little else but real deism, covered with a 
superficial kind of Christianity, I hope, and ve- 
rily believe, there are many living and sensible 
members of the body of Christ in those churches. 
The vitality and glory of Christianity lies in 
the clear administration of the holy Spirit, with- 
out any veil of legal or ritual adumbrations. 
School-learning is but an human accomplish- 
ment; and though very useful as a servant, is no 

1 Gal.iii. 3. a Rev. iii. 1. 



as 

part of Christianity. Neither the acquirements* 
of the college, nor the formalities of human au- 
thority, can furnish that humility which fitteth 
for God's teaching. Possessed of arts and lan- 
guages, weak people are puffed up with a con- 
ceit of superiority, which leads from self-denial 
and the daily cross, into pride and self-suffi- 
ciency ; and instead of waiting for, and depend- 
ing upon the wisdom and power of God, into a 
confidence in the wisdom of this world, and a 
devotional satisfaction in the rote of external 
forms and ortlinances. Whereas those that 
worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ 
Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. 1 
And why ? Because it is the spirit that quick- 
eneth; the flesh projiteth nothing. 2 

Whosoever deny that the holy Spirit, and its 
internal operations, are now to be sensibly ex- 
perienced, only demonstrate their own insensi- 
bility thereof. The true people of God in all 
ages, have declared their own undoubted sense 
of divine illumination and help ; and the apostle, 
in Rom. vii. and viii. before cited, testifies he 
had a strong, clear, distinguishing sense of the 
holy spirit throughout its operations. As it 
was then, it now is, and must remain to be, so 
long as men are upon earth. The same work, 
in due measure, is absolutely necessary to every 
one, and the like sense of it proportionably clear 
and certain to all who experience regeneration. 
No man can obtain felicity out of God's king- 
dom, nor can any enter the kingdom without 
being bora of the spirit ; neither is the work of 

*Phil. iii. 3. 2 John, vi. 63. 



94 

the new-birth wrought insensibly in any* What- 
ever medium incognitum, or unknown means 
men imagine, insensible operation is not rege- 
neration. It is a mere deception. The Holy 
Ghost, whether it operate by words and instru- 
ments, or without them, always comes in power; 
a power which gives an undeniable sense of it; 
perfectly distinct from, and above all other pow- 
ers ; and with a perspicuity, at times, as far ex- 
ceeding all natural lights, as the radiant sun 
does the faint glimmer of the glow-worm. 

This holy' spirit of Divine ligjftt, and power 
of life, is the great fundamental principle of the 
reproached Quakers, and the only true saving 
principle for all mankind. It is Christ in spi- 
rit, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and God's 
salvation to the ends of the earth; who always 
became, and stands always ready to become, 
the Author of eternal salvation to all them that 
obey him. 1 

% Luke ii, S2. Acts xiii. 47. Heb. v. 9, 



95 



CHAP. X. 

1. Man, without Divine Grace, wholly unable to take 
one step towards his salvation. 2. God first sets 
Man at Liberty, often revisits him by the Spirit of 
Grace, seeks by all proper means to prevail with 
him, without violating the Liberty he affords him, 
till his continued backsliding demonstrates he will 
not turn from his evil ways, and live. Then his 
time of visitation ceases, and he is given up to his 
beloved delusions. 3. God is not the author of 
evil. Objections from Isaiah and Amos answered. 

4. Men justified in evil doing, if God be its author. 
What sin is. It is not the effect, but the cause of 
his displeasure, and to be placed to Man's account. 

5. The cause of Man's Salvation. The great ef- 
ficient of it. He operates towards it, both imme- 
diately, and by the use of proper means ; all by 
Grace, through the Faith it communicates ; which 
necessarily produceth good works, not to be attri- 
buted to man as meritorious. 6. What Calvinism 
teaches. 7, &c. The modern Fatalists somewhat 
refine upon this, but unavoidably centre in the 
same absurdity and falsehood. This largely shewn 
in variety of mattter to the end of this chapter. 

1. Having endeavoured plainly to shew what 
the leading principles of the people called 
Quakers are, and that they are the genuine 
doctrines of true Christianity, I shall now pro- 
ceed to take notice of divers matters more par- 
ticularly. 

Robert Barclay says, " As man is wholly un- 
able of himself to work with the grace, neither 
can lie move one step out of the natural condi- 
tion, until the grace of God lay hold upon him, 
so, it is possible to him to be passive, and not 



96 

resist it, as it is possible for him to resist it. " 
That is, by the power of Divine grace laying 
hold of or influencing the spirit of man, it first 
becomes possible for him to be passive, and not 
resist its operation ; which is the first step man 
takes in the way of salvation. " Without me," 
saith our Saviour, " ye can do nothing." x " Man 
cannot set one single step towards his salvation, 
without the assistance of the grace of God, as 
the first moving, and continually enabling cause, 
both of the will and the deed." So that, though 
passiveness'is the beginning of the work, he is 
P'reviously disposed to it by virtue of the holy 
spirit. We attribute the whole of man's sal- 
vation to it, first and last, without at all placing 
man's destruction to the account of his Maker. 
Our doctrine teacheth, 1. That man has no 
ability to save himself, is not naturally in a state 
of equal freedom to good or evil at his pleasure, 
nor is in possession of that faith which is ne- 
cessary to his salvation. 2. That the Redeemer 
affords a manifestation of his spirit to the soul 
of every man, by which, at seasons, he checks 
his corrupt inclinations, stops them in their ca- 
reer, and puts it in his power to reflect upon his 
present condition, and become passive to the 
operation of this inward principle. If he resist 
it not, but stand in submission, it takes further 
hold of him, gives him so to believe in it, as to 
suffer it in some degree to unite with, abide in, 
and operate upon him. In this situation, he 
feels strength and comfort spring up from it, 
which increaseth his faith and trust therein, and 

1 John xv. 5. 



97 

gradually enables and engages him to become 
active ; that is, to join heartily in concurrence 
with its operations, and to proceed from faith 
to faith, and from one degree of grace to ano- 
ther, till he attain to know the new-birth of the 
spirit, and to participate in degree of the glori- 
ous light, life, and nature of the heavenly king- 
dom. 

2. God hath made man a reasonable creature, 
and therefore requires a willing obedience of 
him, in order to the high reward of eternal fe- 
licity ; and if he repeatedly visits all with the 
reaches of his grace, and continues time after 
time to convict, persuade, and woo, as the 
Scriptures declare, that he may prevail upon 
him to come to repentance; doth he not go as 
far as reasonable creatures can claim, without 
violating the rational liberty he affords ? Let 
man but yield obedience to his convictions, and 
see if he can charge his Creator with partiality, 
or hard measure. It is the unprofitable and 
unprofiting servant that doth this. 

Education and tradition do certainly prepos- 
sess, and give a bias to the mind against every 
doctrine different to those it hath been taught ; 
but the divine light, at times, darts in upon the 
soul unawares, as quick as lightning ; penetrates 
through all its darkness and every false colour ; 
disturbs it in its polluted rests, and carnal gra- 
tifications ; shews its bondage under them, and 
inspires the secret wish, and heaving sigh to be 
delivered, attended with some degree of resolu- 
tion against them. This being the opening of 
divine light upon the mind, is called the day of 
Good's visitation, (he, time of grace unto man; 

i 






98 

wherein life and death are distinguished in him ; 
and liberty is not only given him to chuse life, 
which he could not do before, but also a suitable 
measure of ability to love and cleave to the 
grace he is visited with, and thereby to come 
to repentance, and be saved. For this grace is 
the spirit of the Saviour, and brings the power 
of salvation in it. 1 

These merciful visitations of divine grace are 
often repeated, by night as well as by day. 
" God," saith inspired Elihu, " speaketh once., 
yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not ; in a dream, 
in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth 
upon man, in slumberings upon the bed. Then 
he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their 
instruction ; that he may withdraw man from 
his purpose, and hide pride from man." 2 He 
then proceeds to shew, how he operates upon 
the submissive soul, in the w 7 ork of repentance 
and mortification, and what shall be its issue. 
Afterwards, he recapitulates the whole in these 
comprehensive terms. " He looketh upon men, 
and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted 
that which was right, and it profited me not ; 
he will deliver his soul from going into the pit, 
and his life shall see the light. Lo, all these 
things worketh God oftentimes with man, to 
bring back his sotil from the pit to be enlighten- 
ed with the light of the living." 3 

The great father of mercies is pleased to 
continue his gracious visitations from on high 
to backsliding men, till they are become so de- 
termined in wickedness, and so habitually 

1 Tit. ii. 11. 2 Job.xxxjii. M,&c. 3 Ibid 27, &c 



99 

united to its servitude, that like the servants in 
Exodus, xxi. 5, 6, they will not be freed from 
it. Then night comes upon them, the day of 
their visitation ceases ; for God will not always 
strive with those, who have been long and often 
reproved, and still harden their necks, 1 to no 
purpose ; but after long forbearance, he with- 
draws the reaches of his merciful loving-kind- 
ness, and suffers them to incur that dreadful 
sentence, " He that is unjust, let him be unjust 
still ; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy 
still." 2 

When persons are thus judicially hardened, 
and given up to their own hearts lusts, aud be 
loved delusions, and left in a state of insensi- 
bility of the divine principle, they may blindly 
mistake it for peace and security. To such, 
conscience becomes, for the present, obscured, 
and al a book shut up, wherein they cannot 
read ; but in the day of the righteous retribu- 
tion of the great judge of quick and dead, this 
bidden volume will again be unfolded, by him 
who openeth and none can shut, and a just dis- 
tribution made to every one according to what 
is written therein ; for it will prove either a book 
of life or of death to every man ; to them who, 
by patient continuance in well-doing, have 
sought the glory of God, their ow n salvation, 
and the good of others, immortality and eternal 
life ; but to those who have continued in disobe- 
dience and rebellion against God, tribulation 
and anguish both inexpressible and intermin- 
able. 

1 Prov. xxix. 1 2 Rev. xxii. 11. 



- 
100 

3. Can any reasonable creature think it pos- 
sible, that the same spirit and power of good- 
ness which condescended to take our low na- 
ture upon him, suffer in, and sacrifice that na- 
ture whilst connected with it, a propitiation for 
the sins of the whole world, 1 could ever inten- 
tionally consign the majority, or any part of 
the same world, to unavoidable unconditional 
misery ? It appears from his attributes of truth, 
equity, wisdom, mercy, and goodness, impossi- 
ble that he should either actually oblige any of 
his creatures to sin, that they might be misera- 
ble ; or, when he has created them, to desert 
them to sin and misery, by entirely withhold- 
ing from them that which is necessary to their 
help and preservation. We therefore rationally 
conclude, that he doth not only set good and 
evil before man in their just distinctions, but at 
the same time, enables him 10 chuse which he'll 
fdllow; and further, that he stirs up and as- 
sists man to desire after true felicity ; and as he 
abides in this desire, he empowers him to strive, 
press, and wrestle effectually for deliverance 
and preservation. 

The primary motions of volition in the mind 
being very nice and delicate, are not easy, if 
possible, for men to form a precise idea of, with- 
out the light of (rod's spirit ; whence some have 
taken occasion to charge the different disposi- 
tions of men towards the visitations of divine 
grace, to God's account ; by which they render 
him the primary author of evil, who, by the 
special peculiarity of his essence, is too un- 

1 1 John. ii. 2. 



101 

changeably perfect in all his attributes, ever to 
warp from perfect rectitude. But is it not ab- 
surd to suppose, that any intelligent being can 
voluntarily produce what is contrary to its na- 
ture ; especially an omnipotent existence, whose 
power must be irresistable by all objects and 
occurrences? Is not sin the transgression of 
God's will, and vice contrary to his nature ? How 
then could these be produced by an act of his 
will, or be the genuine fruit of his power, either 
mediately or immediately? Can a right under- 
standing lead any man to think, that the will of 
God is possible at any time to be contrary to 
his nature ? 

From purity, goodness, and virtue, no impu- 
rity, vice, or evil could naturally arise. But 
that text hath been objected, "It is impossible 
but that offences will come." 1 True; but 
whence come they ? Not from God, but from 
that root of corruption which hath entered and 
overspread the world. Whilst this corrupt root 
remains, they will naturally spring from it ; and 
the same text pronounces, "Woe nnto him 
through whom they come." " But God saith, 
I create evil." 2 And the prophet saith, " Shall 
there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not 
done it ?" 3 Moral evil is not here intended, but 
the natural evil of pain and distress, through 
hostility, sickness, famine, &c. which are the 
judgments of God upon men for disobedience 
and the commission of moral evil. 

4. To say, that God originally so constituted 
and ordered things, that evil must necessarily en- 



1 Luke, xvii, 1, 2 Isa, xlv. 7. 3 Amos, iii. 6, 

IS 



/ 



103 

$ue in consequence of such constitution, is to treat 
him both as the designing and potential author 
of all evil. Wherein then are the wickedest 
creatures, whether angelical or human, to 
blame ? If they cannot be otherwise than they 
are, nor act otherwise than they do ; in point of 
equity, all their ivickedness is justified by the 
necessity they are originally subjected to by 
their Creator ; whom this doctrine renders the 
real author of it, either immediately or remotely. 
If God himself laid the ground work of all evil, 
he must be the author of all that follows by ne- 
cessary consequence upon it. 

According to my apprehension, sin consists 
in the creature's preferring the indulgence of 
its depraved nature, to the obedience of divine 
grace ; which indulgence leads it to the abuse 
of that grace ; and to think, speak and act 
against the manifested will of its Creator. 
Neither the origin, nor continuance of sin hi 
the world can be the fruit of God's will ; for it 
always brings his displeasure upon the crea- 
tvire. It is not the effect, but the cause of his 
displeasure. A Being, perfectly holy, just and 
good, can neither do evil, nor delight in seeing 
his creatures doit. It is contrary to his nature, 
therefore against his will, and what he could 
not suffer to originate without offering means to 
prevent it, and shewing his displeasure with it ; 
nor can he consistently be conceived to extend 
personal approbation or aversion to any, ex^ 
elusive of the state of the parties respecting 
good and evil. 

That some obey, and others refuse obedience 
to the manifestations of divine grace, is cev- 



103 

tainly true ; and we believe, the cause of this 
difference is not of God, but entirely owing to 
man. Let him that doubts it enquire in his 
own conscience. The faithful witness there, by 
its condemnations for evil, will plainly shew 
him, that the fault is his own. What man is 
there upon earth without these compunctive 
strokes ? Who has not, also, felt at times in- 
clinations and dispositions excited in him to- 
wards virtue and a good life ; and who knows 
not, that when he followed them, he found 
peace in his obedience ; and when he turned 
from this salutary pursuit to one of a contrary 
nature, he incurred trouble and condemnation ? 
Can a reasonable creature need further proofs, 
that both those convicting reprehensions and 
comforts, are the internal immediate adjudica- 
tions of a just, good, powerful, omnipresent, all- 
intelligent principle? And what is this but 
God ; and for what end doth he thus attend 
every soul and conscience, but that all may come 
to repentance and experience salvation P 

5. The first moving, true, and proper cause 
of man's salvation is the goodness and love of 
God to him. The essential means by which he 
effects it, is the operation of his own holy spirit 
on the soul of man ; often immediately, and 
sometimes instrumentally, by making use of 
exterior and incidental things, and working by 
them as secondary means ; such as preaching, 
reading the scriptures and other good books, 
pious conversation, worship, mercies, distresses, 
&c. After this manner it pleaseth Divine wis- 
dom to exercise the body in the service of the 
soul, whereby both are bettered divers ways. It 



t 

104? 

is God by his holy spirit who worketh all good 
in man, both as to the will and the deed. It is 
by grace we are saved, through faith, or in the 
way of faith. That faith which worketh by the 
love of God to the purifying of the heart, and 
the production of good works. These are the 
genuine fruits of it, and inseparable from it: 
therefore without works we cannot be saved. 
Yet it is not by the works that we are saved, as 
the cause of salvation to us, but by grace through 
the root of them, the faith, by which we believe 
in God, open -to, and receive him, cleave to him, 
trust in him, and so lay hold of eternal life. 
This faith is not our faculty, but the gift of God 
to us. It comes by grace, the free grace of 
God, who is " not willing that any should pe- 
rish, but that all should come to repentance." 1 
He whose works are evil, hath not this saving 
faith, believe what propositions he will; for 
where it is, it necessarily produceth good works. 
This root is never without its fruits. " Shew 
me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew 
thee my faith by my works, " 2 saith the apostle 
James. Yet these works do not render us me- 
ritorious of salvation, for they are not to be at- 
tributed to us, but wholly to him, who, through 
his grace, hath brought us into this blessed state 
of living faith wherein they are produced. <« For 
by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that 
not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not 
of works, lest any man should boast : for we are 
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works, which God hath before ordained, 
that we should walk in them." 3 

1 2 Pet. iii. 9. 2 Jam. ii. 1 8. 3 Eph. ii. 8. 9, 1 0. 



105 

6. The reprobationary scheme demonstrates, 
to what a pitch of absurdity the minds even of 
sensible and pious men may be carried, when 
they follow their own cloudy reasonings instead 
of the illuminations of the holy spirit. Calvin 
asserts that/ by the ordination and will of God 
Adam fell. God would have man to fall — and 
that the highest or remote cause of hardening 
is the will of God. Beza saith, God hath pre- 
destinated not only unto damnation, but also 
unto the causes of it, whomsoever he saw meet. 
Zanchius, that God is the first cause of obdu- 
ration. Zuinglius, that God moveth the robber 
to kill. He Jcilleth, God forcing him thereunto. 
But thou wilt say, he is forced to sin; I permit 
truly that he is forced. Piscator, that repro* 
bate persons are absolutely ordained to this two* 
fold end ; to undergo everlasting punishment > 
and necessarily to sin, and therefore to sin, that 
they may be justly punished. 1 It is a mystery 
to me, how the poor reprobates can be justly 
punished, for actions they are divinely obliged 
to commit ; or how they can sin by necessarily 
doing the will of God. 

7- Our modern writers of this class, refine a 
little from the barbarism of their predecessors 
in expression, but their refinements ultimately 
centre in the like accusation of their Creator. 
Jonathan Edwards, M, A. in his careful and 
strict enquiry into the modern prevailing no- 
tions of that freedom of will, 8£c. has these ex- 
pressions : " If by the author of sin be meant 

• i Cap. 3. Gen. 1 Inst C. 18, S. 1. Lib. de Pned. Lib 
de Prov. Lib. de Prsed. De Eccaut. Q. 5. Lib. de Pro 
vid. C. 5. Resp. ad Verst Part fc p. 120, 



106 

the sinner, the agent, or actor of sin, or the 
doer of a wicked thing ; so it would be a re- 
proach and blasphemy to suppose God to be the 
author of sin.— -i*ut if by the author of sin is 
meant the permitter, or not a hinderer of sin ; 
and at the same time, a disposer of the state of 
events in such a manner, for wise, holy and most 
excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be 
permitted, or not hindered, will most certainly 
and infallibly follow : I say, if this be all that 
is meant by the author of sin, I don't deny that 
God is the author of sin" — " It is no reproach 
for the Most High to be thus the author of sin. 
This is not to be the actor of sin, but on the 
contrary, of holiness. What God doth herein 
is holy, and a glorious exercise of the infinite 
excellency of his nature" — " That it is most 
certainly so, that God is in such a manner the 
disposer and orderer of sin, is evident, if any 
credit is to be given to Scripture ; as well as it 
is impossible in the nature of things to be other- 
wise." 1 

I think I have already shewn, in the preced- 
ing part of this discourse, that it is not only 
possible, but most probable to be otherwise ; 
and now shall proceed to shew, it is impossible 
to be according to this author's assertion. 

8. If God disposeth the state of events in such 
a manner, that sin will most certainly follow, 
and that he also permits, or doth not hinder it, 
he must be the sole author of sin himself ; and 
those who are called the actors, or committers 
of evil, are only subjects by whom he effects it. 

* P. 357-8. 



107 

They are nothing more, in the case, than the 
necessitated instruments of evil. If he hath 
so ordered the nature and concerns of his ra- 
tional creation, that they must most certainly 
and infallibly sin, he must be the cause of sin, 
and not they ; and it cannot be righteous in him 
to charge the blame of what must infallibly fol- 
low, from his own determination and disposal, 
upon those to whom he has rendered it un- 
avoidable. 

If the Almighty, from the beginning, so or- 
dered his creation, that evil must necessarily 
ensue in it, it must be designed by him, or he 
would not have so ordered it ; and every sup- 
posed transgressor necessarily acts according to 
the Divine will, in every sin he commits; and 
the Divine being takes pleasure, first in his sin, 
and next in his eternal misery ; for he is cer- 
tainly pleased when his will is done. What 
worse can be said of the worst of beings, than 
this doctrine implies of the best. 

If man be allowed no choice, he can incur no 
guilt. He must at some time be at liberty, or 
he can never do amiss. If he do only what he 
is obliged to do, by a constitution of things lixt 
by his Creator, he cannot sin against him^ for 
what he obliges him to do, he wills him to do, 
and it can be no transgression against him to do 
his will ; because to sin, is to offend him, and 
to offend him is to act contrary to his will. 
Whatever a man doth from the necessity of his 
nature, let that necessity be the consequence of 
the lapse of his first parents, or not, if a remedy 
be not in his power, it is the same thing to him. 
It was not himself that subjected himself to such 



108 

a faulty or defective nature ; therefore he can- 
not, in equity, be condemned for what he could 
no way help or avoid. To assert, that a person 
may be justly punished for being what he is 
obliged to be, or doing what he is inevitably 
forced to do by his Maker, may pass upon blind 
inconsiderate people for rmjstery; but to others 
it must appear a manifest absurdity, and a most 
daring one, when attributed to the eternal foun- 
tain of all truth and justice ; a reproach to him, 
and blasphemy against him. 

9. It is impossible God should commit any 
act of sin, because it is against his nature, and 
consequently impossible he should will it. Sin 
is the transgression of his will, and if he could 
neither will nor act it, he cannot be any way the 
author of it. Barely suffering it to arise, is not 
causing it to be. All that can be allowed is, 
that by forming reasonable creatures, and con- 
stituting them in a state of rational freedom, he 
afforded them the opportunity of making their 
duty their choice ; but never willed them to abuse 
it, by lapsing from the grace he favoured them 
with for their preservation, dividing their wills 
from his will, and counteracting his salutary 
laws, to whom they owed their being, and on 
whom they must absolutely depend for all the 
good they ever could enjoy. And notwithstand- 
ing he foresaw they might be prevailed on to 
make a wrong use of their liberty, he certainly 
intended to favour them with means amply 
sufficient for their recovery and restoration. 
Though he forebore forcibly to hinder them 
from falling into iniquity, he did all that could 
be done to prevent it in rational creatures. He 



109 

forewarned them against it, shewing them the 
dreadful consequence of it, and unquestionably 
armed them with power, by his spirit, to with- 
stand all temptation to it, had they kept under 
it. He never could so permit, as to license 
their departure from their reasonable duty, and 
true interest. By the power and goodness dis- 
pensed to man, he might have stood without sin ; 
and now that he has fallen into it, by a renewal of 
the same power and goodness still afforded him, 
he may be recovered from it, and brought to feli- 
city. His Redeemer both offers and assists him ; 
vet he backslides, and refuses to abide under 
the guidance of his great benefactor. Man's 
destruction, therefore, is of himself, and in the 
Lord alone is his help. l 

10. We are told, the will is always deter- 
mined by the strongest motive. Has the will 
no liberty then, at any time ? Is it always so 
forcibly determined, in all its motions, by cir- 
cumstances and motives successively arising 
upon it, from the original constitution of things, 
that every man is necessarily obliged to think, 
speak, and act just as he doth ? No, it is an- 
swered, in temporal matters the mind has a li- 
berty of choice. Why not in spirituals as well 
as temporals ? How are the motives and cir- 
cumstances which determine the will in tempo- 
ral concerns, more in its power than those that 
determine it in spiritual ones ; and how do we 
know it to be so ? Was this really the case, our 
inevitable acts would certainly render us no pro- 
per subjects of reward and punishment : of come 

1 Hos. xiii. 9. 
K 



110 

ye blessed, or go ye cursed. We must be 
equally unentitled to approbation and censure. 

Those who alledge, that motives arise from 
the circumstances we are placed in, and the oc- 
currences we meet with, which necessarily oblige 
us to think, speak, and act as they impress our 
minds, do not appear sufficiently to consider, 
that there is a supreme all-powerful Controller 
of circumstances and events, who can, and un- 
questionably doth, in due season, by his poten- 
tial influence upon the mind of man, counterba- 
lance every other influence. Can we think that 
he placeth good and evil, life and death before 
men, as the sacred records testify, and calleth 
them repeatedly to choose life and good, and 
yet that he doth not enable them so to do? 
Every divine precept, every exhortation, every 
command, every commination, implies a liberty 
afforded to the subject, to comply or refuse ; to 
obey or disobey. 

11. In the supposition before us, the will of 
man is effectually deprived of all freedom in his 
main concern. For it is the same thing to the 
sufferer, whether the superior power subject him 
under this irresistible fatality, by an immediate 
and unalterable decree, or by the means of mo- 
tives and inducements, so powerfully suited to 
his natural inclinations and passions, that he 
must necessarily be carried away with them. 
The man is equally in bondage either way. 
To tell him that his will is free, because he doth 
as he pleases when he acts agreeable to those 
motives, and the dispositions they necessarily 
excite, or enlarge, whilst at the same time, they 
*\v, unavoidable by him, and so irresistibly in- 



Ill 

ftuential to his corrupt inclinations, that they are 
rendered eagerly concurrent with them ; to argue 
in this case, that because the party pursues the 
gratification of his present desires, he acts upon 
a principle of freedom, is to assert an evident 
falsehood. For, the man is first deceived, over- 
powered, and so unwittingly captivated, that he 
cannot avoid willing the evil he is insnared in- 
to; and though he wills it, it is because his 
will is not at liberty, but previously deceived 
and captivated, though he sees not how ; and 
instead of being a moral agent, is merely the 
Instrument of an unseen superior power, who 
artfully obliges him to an evil course, and to 
the infelicity consequent upon it. 

The nature of liberty supposes no absolute 
necessity, but such a freedom as may admit of 
choice, without a predetermining power oblig- 
ing one way only. *Tis true, the powers of 
men, as well as those of all other creatures, are 
necessarily limited to their proper sphere. No 
creature can exceed the bounds of its proper 
element, yet it can act with freedom therein, as 
a bird in the air, or a fish in the water; so man, 
though unable to stretch beyond the compass of 
humanity, is enabled to act at liberty within it ; 
and I conceive, a wise and good being, though 
omnipotent, would not put any restraint or force 
upon him there, but for his good. It is barba- 
rous to suppose, he would restrain him from 
good in order to his hurt. " Far be it from God, 
that he should do wickedness ; and from the 
Almighty, that he should commit iniquity. For 
the work of a man shall he render unto him, 
and cause every man to find according to his 



112 

ways. For he will not lay upon man more 
than right ; that he should enter into judgment 
with God." 1 

12. I cannot perceive any ground for a de- 
structive partiality in Almighty wisdom, and 
perfect equity. Can he who prefers mercy to 
sacrifice* exalt cruelty above mercy ? To sup- 
pose, that the Supreme Excellence should create 
Ml the millions of mankind of one nature, and 
for eternal duration, and that he should, either 
immediately jor remotely, necessitate a minority 
of them to everlasting happiness, and at the same 
time determine to give the major part no other 
opportunity, but to be inevitably and eternally 
miserable ; is to suppose, that there is more 
cruelty than goodness, more rigour than wisdom, 
and more inequality than mercy in the divine 
nature* I therefore must conclude, that the 
supposition is irrational, unjust, and grossly in- 
jurious to the divine character. 

Is it to be understood, that he who is sup- 
posed to act in this contrary manner, towards his 
creatures in the same state and nature, doth it 
from one and the same nature in himself; or 
that he is differently determined towards them, 
from two different natures of contrary disposi- 
tions in himself? I am utterly unable to con- 
ceive how opposite wills can subsist in the same 
nature, and how two contrary natures can exist 
iu a being of perfect and immutable simplicity 
and purity ; or that such contrary procedures con- 
cerning his rational creatures, can arise from 
unity, equity, and goodness, in the utmost per- 

1 Job,xxxiv. 10,11, 93. 



113 

fection? But no difficulty attends the supposi- 
tion, that the same nature should operate to dif- 
ferent effects, upon subjects in different condi- 
tions. It is evident to every man's observation, 
that the most glorious inanimate object of crea- 
tion, the sun, by its beams will soften pitch and 
harden clay; but these contrary effects arise 
not from different natures in its own rays, but 
are different effects of the same beams, occasion- 
ed by the contrary dispositions of the pitch and 
clay to receive them. So, I apprehend, the 
holy spirit operates differently on different per- 
sons, by reason of their different states and dis- 
positions to receive its influences. 

It is not a little affecting, to behold allega- 
tions so injurious to the great dispenser of all 
good, set forth with subtlety of sentiment, and 
elegance of language, which can hardly fail to 
operate to the deception and hurt of those who 
embrace and allow them a place in their minds. 
To assert, that God either originally, or after- 
wards, disposed the course of things, and state 
of events in such a manner, that sin must cer- 
tainly and infallibly follow, is to render him the 
intentional and primary author of all the evil 
that ensues. For he that raises a building, caus- 
eth it to be filled with combustibles, and sets fire 
to it by a fuse, or a train of powder of the great- 
est extent, which must infallibly burn it down, 
is as certainly the destroyer of the edifice, as if 
he fired it immediately without such means. 

13. It hath been alleged, If God had not 
given man liberty, he could not have abused it. 
Very true. If the artificer had not made, nor 
the shopkeeper furnished the suicide with the 



114< 

knife he cut his throat with* he could not have 
misused it ; but is he who made or sold it him, 
for better purposes, entitled to any part of his 
guilt? Without liberty man could not have sin- 
ned, and without the knife the suicide could not 
have made such a self- injurious use of it ; yet 
it is not the knife, nor those who furnished it; 
neither is it the liberty, nor he who afforded it; 
but the ill-conceived disposition of the perpe- 
trator from whence the default ariseth, and to 
which it is, in justice, wholly to be imputed. 

14. All the souls that God has made are 
equally his ; and he whose mercies are over all 
his ivories, overlooks none of his creatures in 
the distribution of his mercies. He withholds 
his talents from none; but dispenseth them in 
different portions to different persons ; that so- 
cial communication and connection may be pre- 
served amongst us in this life. To one he gives 
five talents ; to a second, two ; to a third, one ; 
but to every one a degree of divine manifesta- 
tion sufficient, if believed in and obeyed, to ope- 
rate to his salvation. He justly requires a pro- 
fiting answerable to the measure he affords ; and 
as he perfectly knows to what degree of im- 
provement each might have attained, he will 
finally judge all according to their increase, 
their negligence, or their rejection of the talent 
received. 

15. The rational immortal soul, is principal- 
ly and essentially the man. This, as I have al- 
ready shewn, is the immediate creation of God, 
and descended not from Jldam and Eve, nor 
passeth from parents to children, like the mor- 
tal body ; and seeing it never was in them, it 



115 

never sinned in them. The doctrine of prete- 
ntion therefore, which supposes, that all sinned 
when Adam transgressed, and deserve condem- 
nation for the sin he committed, and thence con- 
cludes, that God doth justly withhold his sav- 
ing grace from the majority of mankind ; is a 
conclusion drawn from untrue premises, and 
consequently a false doctrine. First to create 
the rational soul, and then to forsake it, is not 
preterition, but dereliction. And this doctrine 
is not only false, but dangerous. For when 
some feel the comfortable touches of divine vi- 
sitation, instead of humbling themselves under 
it, that the work of regeneration may go for- 
ward, this opinion leads them to imagine it to be 
a mark of their election, and perhaps to add 
other marks to themselves from mistaken scrip- 
tures ; by which they increase their natural 
pride, self-conceit, and presumption, which de- 
feat the good intention of God's grace towards 
them. Others, of a melancholy turn, when con- 
victed and distressed in their minds for sin, are 
led, by this opinion, to think it a mark of per- 
sonal reprobation, aud thence into despondence, 
with all its dismal consequences. Thus, what 
the merciful Creator intends for mens' benefit, 
they turn to their own great disadvantage. 

16. Whatever doctrine contradicts the evident 
sense, of those clear and express portions of the 
sacred record, which, by divine commission, 
professedly and directly treat upon this point; 
such doctrine must be false, and ought to be 
rejected. It answers no good purpose to increase 
disputation about things hidden, or texts obscure 
and ambiguous ; but this is certain, and certainly 



116 

to be relied upon, that where the Almighty plain- 
ly declares his will respecting his creatures, he. 
who cannot be mistaken, is surely to be credited 
in preference to the contra-positions of mistaken 
men, who presume to interpret his words so as 
to contradict his most clear, and most solemn 
asseverations. 

Through a misapprehension of the second 
commandment, the people of Israel, in Eze- 
TcieVs time, had espoused this reprobationary no- 
tion, that the children were punished for the sin 
of their parents ; so that it was become a maxim 
among them, " The fathers have eaten sour 
grapes, and the childrens teeth are set on edge." 
The prophet, therefore, was especially commis- 
sioned to declare God's immutable will and de- 
termination in opposition thereto. " As I live, 
saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion 
any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, 
all souls are mine, as the soul of the father, so 
also the soul of the son is mine : the soul that 
sinneth it shall die. 1 The son shall not bear 
the iniquity of the father, neither shall the fa- 
ther bear the iniquity of the son ; the righteous- 
ness of the righteous shall be upon him, and 
the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon 
him. 2 — Yet ye say, the way of the Lord is not 
equal. Hear now, O house of Israel ! Is not 
my way equal ? Are not your ways unequal ? 
When a righteous man turneth away from his 
righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and 
dieth in them, for his iniquity that he hath done, 
shall he die. Again, when the wicked man 

1 Ezek. xviii. ver. 2 to 5. a Yew 20* 



117 

turneth away from his wickedness that he hath 
committed, and doth that which is lawful and 
right, he shall save his soul alive. Because 
he considereth, and turneth away from his 
transgressions that he hath committed, he shall 
surely live, he shall not die. 1 — I will judge 
you, O house of Israel, every one according 
to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, 
and turn yourselves from all your transgres- 
sions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin." 2 
The prophet repeats more to the like purpose, 
both in this chapter, and in the 33d. " As 
I live, saith the Lord God, I have no plea- 
sure in the death of the wicked, but that the 
wicked turn from his way and live. Turn 
ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will 
ye die, O house of Israel ? 3 — Yet the children 
of thy people say, the way of the Lord is not 
equal ; but as for them, their way is not equal. 
When the righteous turneth from his righteous- 
ness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die 
thereby. But if the wicked turn from his wick- 
edness, and do that which is lawful and right ; 
he shall live thereby." 4 

It is manifest, the death denounced in these 
scriptures, is not the common death of the bo- 
dy ; for in that respect, one event happeneth to 
the righteous and the wicked ; but that state of 
everlasting infelicity peculiar to those who go 
out of time into eternity, without repentance and 
regeneration. 

From all these express declarations, it evi- 

1 Verse 25 to 29. a Verse SO. 3 Chap. xxxiii. U. 
4 Verse 17, 18* 19. 



118 

dently appears, that the Almighty " doth not 
afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of 
men;" 1 that he is not icilling that any should 
perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 
These are all plain manifestations of the mind 
of God professedly on the point ; and to all who 
intend not to deny his uprightness and veracity 
they ought to he decisive. The sins of men 
are placed to the account of their own will and 
not to the will of (rod, in that pathetic expos- 
tulation, Why will ye die ? And indeed, it is 
impossible he should will that which is a trans- 
gression of his will. It is clear, he doth all 
that can be done by fair means to prevent it. 
By that pressing repetition, turn ye, turn ye 
from your evil ways, it is manifest, he puts it in 
the power of men to turn from them. Who 
then can justify their perverseness, by any way 
charging their sin, either immediately or re- 
motely, to his account ? 

Men are not destroyed through any malevo- 
lence in their Creator towards them ; but are 
saved by his grace, which he dispenseth to all 
from that unparalleled benevolence,which ariseth 
purely from his infinite goodness. Sinful man 
hath nothing to offer ; God therefore, will have 
mercy, because he will have mercy ; because he 
is full of mercy, he will dispense it to his help- 
less and unworthy creatures. "I," saith he to 
the repenting sinner, " even I am he that blot- 
teth out thy transgressions, for mine own sake, 
and will not remember thy sins." 3 

17. Detachments of various texts and portions 

# 

1 Lam. iii. 33. 2 2 Pet. iii. 9. 3 Isa. xliii. 25. 



119 

of scripture, though indirect to the subject, and 
alluding to different considerations, have been 
pressed, and marshalled under divers colours, 
to fix a cruel partiality on our common Creator 
and benefactor. We are told, that he ordered 
the obstinacy of Pharaoh, the sin and folly of 
Sihon, and the kings of Canaan, the treache- 
rous rebellion of Zedekiah against the king of 
Babylon, the rapine and ravages of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, &C 1 Bat, properly considered, this 
was ordering punishment for sin, not sin for 
punishment. He hardeneth none till they have 
hardened themselves past all probability of re- 
pentance, and then he leaves them to the mis- 
rule of their own beloved lusts and vices ; and 
what are treated as uni'ighteous ravages, though 
really such in the committers of them, are, re- 
specting the Almighty, the righteous execution 
of his justice against those who have filled up 
their measure of iniquity , and abused his gracious 
goodness and long forbearance towards them, 
till he sees fit no longer to continue it to them. 
Thus he punisheth the settled wickedness of 
some, by the wickedness of their enemies, which 
he permits to be turned upon them ; and after- 
wards proceeds in like manner with their chas- 
tisers, when they also have filled up their mea- 
sure. 

I shall omit at present to proceed further with 
the scriptures alleged against the universal ex- 
tension of divine goodness to the souls of men; 
and acknowledge my inability to conceive, what 
wise, holy, and most excellent ends and pur- 

1 Edward's, p. 358, &c. 



120 

poses could be answered, by the Almighty's dis- 
posing the state of events in such a manner, 
that sin will most certainly and infallibly fol- 
low, and eternal misery to innumerable multi- 
tudes of his creatures in consequence ; and also 
what glory can accrue to a being infinite in wis- 
dom, power and goodness, from his continually 
creating immortal and reasonable creatures, with 
no better intention towards them but that most 
barbarous one of irredeemable infelicity. I am 
also at a loss to discover, what comfort can arise 
to an humane, virtuous and charitable mind 
from such a cruel consideration. Those hearts 
must be very unfeeling for others, and their con- 
ceit in their own favour very strong, who, fan- 
cying to themselves a personal election, can 
pride and console themselves in their own ima- 
gined security, and the inequitable destruction 
of the major part of their species. Misled men, 
like the unprofitable servant, may imagine such 
unjust severity in the unchangeable perfection 
of equity ; but those who have the love of God 
shed abroad in their hearts, by the Holy Ghost, 
find it to flow freely towards all mankind with- 
out exception, and to engage them to wish the 
salvation of all. This is a stronger proof to 
them of the universality of God's good-will to 
men, than all the sophistical reasonings of those 
who remain insensible of it, to the contrary. 

19. We read, Isaiah, lv. 8, 9, " My thoughts 
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my 
ways, saith the Lord ; for as the heavens are 
higher than the earth, so are my ways h igher than 
your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." 
And chap. xl. 28. the prophet saith, " There 



i2i 

is no searching of his understanding." Yet our 
christian fatalists appear to think themselves 
wise enough to discover the very precise mode 
and manner of (rod's prescience ; and because 
they can see but one way how omniscience 
should foreknow, they seem to conclude there 
can be no other in the unlimited expanse of 
infinite ability. But, " Who hath known the 
mind of the Lord, or who hath been his coun- 
sellor?" 1 To whom hath he revealed those 
unsearchable, and incomprehensible secrets of 
the Divine essence, which belong to himself 
only ? A due degree of modesty would teach 
us, there is something in the mode and manner 
of infinite comprehension, as much beyond the 
reach of our limited capacities, as the extent of 
omniscience itself; and attempts to unveil in- 
scrutable mysteries, are more evident demon- 
strations of human presumption and folly, than 
of wisdom and piety. Are those men sure there 
is no way possible for God to know, but what 
is open to the perception of their imperfect mo- 
dicum of reason ? The arguments they ground 
upon this imaginary foundation, are sufficient to 
impeach their basis ; for they carry an evident 
face of falsehood. They ultimately and una- 
voidably render the undeniable source of all 
good, and centre of all perfection, the real and 
intentional author of all imperfection, vice and 
wickedness, and all the misery consequent 
thereupon ; which it is impossible for unchange- 
able toth and goodness to be. " Wilt thou," 
saith 1*0, " disannul my judgment ? Wilt thou 

1 Rom.xi.34. 



122 

condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous ? m 
u God forbid," saith the apostle, " yea let God 
be true, but every man a liar." 2 

From the certainty of the premises the cer- 
tainty of the conclusion ariseth. From uncer- 
tain premises no certain conclusion can be drawn. 
There is something in the Divine prescience 
which always hath been, and is ever like to re- 
main an impenetrable secret to human under- 
standing. What no man knows, no man can 
properly argue from. We know the Divine 
fjeing is but one essence, perfectly pure and 
simple. One eternal, immutable, central power, 
making and supporting all other beings, and 
operating variously according to the subjects, 
and the state of the subjects of its operation ; 
but never contrarily towards subjects in the 
same condition. As all souls are equally his 
immediate creation, no just reason can be ad- 
vanced why he, who is righteous in all his ways, 
and holy, or merciful, in all his works, 3 should 
deal so unequally with them, as to predetermine 
some to eternal happiness, and others to inevi- 
table misery. Mere will and pleasure, implies 
an unaccountable severity, though under the 
guise of sovereignty. The condemnation of 
men, according to our Saviour, is neither the 
fruit of God's previous decree, nor his preten- 
tion; for, "this is the condemnation, that light 
is come into the world, but men loved darkness 
rather than light, because their deeds were 
evit" 4 



1 Job, xl. 8. 2 Rom. Hi. 4. 3 Psal. cxlv. 17. 4 John 
. 19. 



128 



CHAP. XL 

1. The sufficiency of the Spirit of Christ, for the in- 
struction of his rational creation asserted, but it 
is not limited to the Scriptures nor to any other in- 
strumental means. 2. The Scripture not clearly 
and fully understood without the illumination of 
the Spirit that gave them forth. 3. Authors cited 
to this purpose. 4. Barclay's assertion defended. 
5. No disagreement or clashing in the different 
degrees of Divine evidence. 6. The infallibility 
of the Scriptures as given forth by the Spirit, and 
the fallibility of human understanding concerning 
them. 7. None but the Divine author able to as- 
certain his own sense in the Scriptures. 8. The 
Scriptures rightly understood, a Rule; but not the 
sole, the primary, and universal Rule. The Holy 
Spirit alone is such. 9. The Scriptures allowed 
to be the primary written rule, to which, in all 
disputes we therefore refer, as well as others ; but 
the immediate illumination of God's Spirit, is a 
more certain criterion to each individual in bis 
own breast. 

1. Christ is with his true followers, and will 
be to the end of the world. To say, he is al- 
ways with them in the scriptures, appears to 
me too great a strain of language for truth to 
accompany. If the spirit of Christ be so con 
nected with the text, as always to atte*^ *S * 
apprehend no sincere and sens^e reader could 
mistake the sense of % ^r auy such differ to 
an opposition of each other about it; yet what 
is more ©oinmon ? We have frequently expe- 
rienced, and always allowed, that the spirit of 
truth often useth, and openeth truth by the scrip- 
tures, as an instrumental means ; and we also 



124 

assert, that tlie same spirit often hath opened 
f ruths, given a sense of their conditions, and ad- 
ministered help to sincere and attentive minds, 
without the instrumentality of the scriptures. 
This is the universal gospel-privilege, foretold 
by Jeremiah through Divine inspiration. " I 
will put my law in their inward parts, and 
write it in their hearts, and will be their Godj 
and they shall be my people. And they shall 
teach no more," of necessity, " every man his 
neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, 
know ye the Lord ; for they shall all know me," 
each man for himself, u from the least oftherjft 
to the greatest of them, saith the Lord." 1 

Is it rationally to be understood, that this Di- 
vine internal teacher, is so absolutely bound to 
the instrumentality of scripture, in his immedi- 
ate legation to the soul of man, that he never 
opens or instructs without it ? The text implies 
no such matter. The apostle John, Anno Dom. 
90, treats of this immediate teacher under the 
title of an unction from the holy one. " Ye 
have an unction from the holy one, and ye know 
all things." 2 That is, I take it, ye have the 
spirit, which as you attend to it, gives you a 
right discerning of all things that concern you ; 
for, " The anointing which ye have received 
iiv,^ hio^ abideth in you, and ye need not that 
any man teuoh yotl • but as the same anointing 
teacheth you of ail tk<* n % s , and is truth," the 
spirit of truth, " and is no \W % and even, as it 
hath taught you, ye shall abide in hhn or it*" 
This shews the complete sufficiency of this in 

1 Jer. xxxl 33, 34. 2 1 John., ii. 20, Z7. 



125 

ward, immediate instructor, without any instru- 
mentality of an exterior kind. The eternal 
spirit of truth cannot stand in need of any such 
assistance ; consequently, is not to be under- 
stood as confined to any, but operates either by 
the scriptures, or without them, at his pleasure. 

God hath always afforded instruction to his 
people ; but his teachings by the law to the 
Jews, were through instrumental means. The 
prophet declares, this new covenant of the gos- 
pel should not be according to the old covenant 
of the law ; it should not consist of instrumental 
teaching, though that might be occasionally 
used ; for God himself would put his law in 
their inward parts. 1 This implies his own im- 
mediate communication to the soul, of that law 
which is not according to the literal nature of 
the old covenant, but is really and truly, the 
law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus ; the 
illuminating quickening law, immediately and 
mentally given to man by the spirit of life it- 
self; which therefore is, and ever must be, the 
constitutional establishment of the gospel dis- 
pensation. 

Isaiah, in a prophetic address to the gospel 
church, saith, " all thy children shall be taught 
of the Lord." 2 In reference to this, and other 
like prophecies, our Saviour saith, "it is written 
in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of 
God. Every man therefore that hath heard f 
and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto 
me." 3 And in the preceding vfcrse he saith, 
*• no man can come to me except the Father who 

1 Jer. xxxi. 31, 32. 2 Isa« liv. 13. 3 John, vL 45, 

l3 



120 

hath sent me, draw him." 1 This drawing, 
hearing and learning of the Father, and coming 
to Christ, are all spiritually to be understood ; 
as I have shewn in the former part of this dis- 
course. This doctrine is witnessed to, 1 Thess. 
iv. 8, 9. Beginning with those who had so little 
understanding of it, as to treat it with contempt, 
the apostle declares, " he therefore that despis- 
eth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also 
given unto us his holy Spirit. But as touching 
brotherly-love, ye need not that I write unto 
you ; for ye 'yourselves are taught of God,- to 
love one another." The apostle was then writ- 
ing to them mediately from God, by divine in- 
spiration ; and he makes a manifest difference 
between this mediate manner of teaching, and 
what he intended by their being taught of God ; 
the direct and obvious sense of which is, Grod's 
own immediate illumination and instruction. 

By necessary consequence from these pre- 
mises, and abundance more that might be added 
-from the scriptures, it appears to be both an ex- 
perimental and a scriptural truth ; that God 
teacheth immediately by his spirit, as well as 
instrumentally by external means; and that 
this is an indispensable doctrine of the gospel. 

2. Man, without divine illumination, has not 
sufficient ability to ascertain the genuine sense of 
doubtful and disputed texts ; which being very 
numerous, together with the diversity of senses 
wherein those texts are understood, by persons 
apparently of equal sincerity, and of the best 
natural and acquired parts, under the same, as 

1 John, vi. 44, 



127 

well as different denominations, are plain indi- 
cations, that the assistance of the Divine author 
himself is requisite to the right understanding 
of them. Man's reason is too much clouded, 
and biassed by his passions and prepossessions, 
to be justly denominated right reason; and its 
diversity concerning spiritual matters, and its 
mutability in the same person is very evident. 
Might reason is truth, unchangeably the same, 
and incapable of error, and therefore exists only 
in the divine nature; which men must, in mea- 
sure, become partakers of, in order to the recti- 
fication of their fallen and fallible reason. 

Respecting the scriptures, we are so far from 
lessening them, or opposing the true sense of 
them, that we verily believe, and sincerely as- 
sert, that the holy Spirit, in what degree of il- 
lumination soever it appears, never can contra- 
dict them; for difference in degree makes no 
contrariety. It is the private, or particular 
interpretation of man without divine illumina- 
tion, that we object to, as insufficient to assure 
the sense of disputed scriptures. Besides man's 
natural inability, the various prejudices, the pre- 
vailing passions, the different interests, and the 
diverse leaders of the people, all contribute to 
give different, and sometimes opposite senses of 
the sacred text. Many have the words of the 
spirit in scripture, who have not the mind of the 
spirit in their hearts. 

3. Neither nature nor education can give a 
man the sense of the Holy Ghost; nor, of con- 
sequence, interpret its expressions with certain- 
ty. It is therefore truly asse&te^i nj&^ly^y 

~ver : Open mine eyes, 



128 

the Quakers, but also by abundance of distin- 
guished writers of various professions, ancient 
and modern, that the internal illumination of 
God's holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to 
every man, in order to his right understanding 
of the scriptures. Let me advance a few out of 
many more now before me. 

" The holy scriptures, opened by the Holy 
Spirit, shew Christ unto us, the Holy Spirit is 
therefore the opener of the scriptures." Theo- 
phylact in Joan. 10. 

" What men set forth from human sense, may 
be perceived by the wit of man ; but what is set 
forth by the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, re- 
quires an interpreter inspired with the like 
spirit." Erasmus , Paraph, in % Pet. i. 20, SI, 
And Coll. in Ixthuophagia prope Finem, he 
eays, " They expound the sacred writings from 
the pulpit, which no man can either rightly un- 
derstand, or profitably teach without the inspi- 
ration of the Holy Spirit. 

" The scriptures are of no private interpre- 
tation ; i. e. not of every private man's inter- 
pretation out of his own brain, because they 
were dictated by the Holy Ghost; and by the 
Holy Ghost, the meaning of the Holy Ghost in 
them only can be expounded." Obad. Walker's 
Disc, concerning the Spirit of Martin Luther, 

p. 97. 

" The scriptures are not to be understood, 
but by the same Spirit by which they are writ- 
ten." Luther, Oper. Tom. 2. p. 309. 

" The Spirit of God, from whom the doc- 
trine of the Gospel proceeds, is the only true in* 



129 

terpreter to open it to us." Calvin's Coin, ia 
1 Cor. ii. 14; 

" The apostle teacheth, 1 Cor. 2. that the 
scripture cannot be apprehended and under- 
stood but by the Holy Spirit." Zanchius, De 
Sacra Scriptura, Tom. viii. p. 430. 

" The things of the spirit of God, are under- 
stood and perceived by the powerful inspira- 
tion of the Holy Spirit alone." Beza, Annotat. 
in 1 Cor. ii. 14*. 

" As the scriptures were written by the Spi- 
rit of God, so must they be expounded by the 
same. For, without that spirit, we have neither 
ears to hear, nor eyes to see. It is that spirit 
that openeth, and no man shutteth, the same 
shutteth, and no man epeneth." Bish. Jewel's 
Defence of the Apology, p. 72. 

*' The outward reading of the word, with- 
out the inward working of his spirit, is nothing. 
The precise pharisees, the learned scribes, 
read the scriptures over and over again; they 
not only read them in books, but wore them 
on their garments; they were not only taught, 
but were able to teach others. But because this 
heavenly Teacher had not instructed them, their 
understanding was darkened ; their knowledge 
was but vanity." Archbp. Sandys 9 s Sermons, 
printed 1616, p. 48. 

" The holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost; it followeth, that 
all the scripture ought to be expounded by 
God, because it is inspired of God — We do 
acknowledge, that all means are vain, unless 
the JLord give eyes to sec 5 to whom therefore, 
the prophet made his prayer : Open mine eyes, 



130 

that I may see the wonders of thy law." 1 Rai- 
nolds's Conference with Hart, p. 81. 

"The internal light whereby we come to 
see the sense of the scripture, is the holy spi- 
rit." Weemse J s Christian Synagogue, lib. i. 
p. 31. 

" The anointing of the holy spirit teacheth 
the faithful to understand those truths, which 
they have received from the apostles." Ame- 
sius, Bellarm. enervatus. Lib. i. c. v. n. 32. p. 
60. 

" It is not possible that supernatural know- 
ledge should be rightly received, without su- 
pernatural light." Fra. Rous Interiora regni 
Dei Coelest. Academ. chap. ii. p. 12. 

u God is the author of all divine truth, and 
of the discovery of it made to us. An inward 
enlightening and irradiating the mind by the 
holy spirit, is absolutely necessary for the ap- 
prehending of the divine mysteries, which are 
contained in the doctrines of the gospel." John 
Edwards's Free Disc, concerning Truth and 
Error, p. 481. 

" In regeneration the understanding is illu- 
minated by the holy spirit, that it may under- 
stand both the mysteries and will of God." 
The Helvetian Confession, and Expos. Fidei 
Christians, chap. ix. 

u The gift of interpreting scripture, is not of 
human prudence, but of the Holy Ghost." Wir- 
tembergica Confessio, de Sacra Scrip tura, in 
Corp. Confess. 

" We acknowlege the inward illumination of 

'Psal. cxix. 18. 



131 

the spirit of God, to be necessary for the sav- 
ing understanding of such things as are reveal- 
ed in the word." Confession of Faith by the 
Assembly of Divines at Westminster, since 
approved by the Kirk of Scotland, and the 
same with that of the Independants, and parti- 
cular Baptists. 

Barclay's assertion, that neither the scriptures, 
nor the natural reason of man, are a more noble, 
or certain rule or touchstone, than the immediate 
revelation of God's holy spirit, relates only to 
such as are sensible of its immediate rfevelations, 
and to the evidence of these revelations in the 
parties themselves to whom they are immediate. 
To these he asserts, they are more noble, be- 
cause divine ; and more certain, because imme- 
diate, than their own private interpretation 
of scriptures, by reading and study, without the 
illumination of the holy spirit, can be. The 
spirit only can ascertain the sense it intends. 
Sometimes it communicates a literal, sometimes 
an allegorical sense, a direct, or an allusive 
sense, a theoretical, or an experimental sense. 
Men are liable to mistake one for another ; and 
without a sense of the spirit, must often miss of 
the mind of the spirit. 

In the next proposition, Barclay demonstrates 
the truth of his assertion, by shewing from 1 
Cor. xii. 12, &c. that though the body or church 
of Christ is one, it is composed of many mem- 
bers, who have each their several services ap- 
pointed, and directed by the Holy Spirit in 
that body ; and each must therefore attend to the 
spirit for his own proper direction. He after- 
wards instances the special duties of particu- 



433 

lars ia (lie church. Barclay therefore gives 
frequent advices, to a waiting for, and due at- 
tention to, the Holy Spirit. 

We are well apprized of, and have always 
asserted, that greater and lesser degress of di- 
vine illumination have been communicated to 
different persons ; but we also believe, there 
cannot be any contrariety, clashing, or disso- 
nance in any of its degrees ; because it is from 
one and the same spirit ; and in what degree so- 
ever it appears, it speaks one and the same thing 
in point of cbngruity, and carries its own divine 
authority with it in every degree. Hence, to 
suppose a disagreement between one degree of 
it and another, whilst it can differ in nothing but 
degree, is untrue and absurd. As to our own, 
or any man's own pretended, or any pretended 
divine revelations, we utterly and equally dis- 
claim, as being of any authority, or advantage 
whatsoever ; for such mere pretensions are al- 
together as unequal to discover and assure the 
true sense of dubious parts of scripture, as the 
unenlightened reason of the natural man. It is 
a vain thing in any person to pretend he has the 
true sense of the holy scriptures, whilst his 
performances demonstrate his mistakes concern- 
ing it 

6. When any press their own particular opi- 
nion of the sense of any part of scripture, as 
the true sense of the Holy Ghost, yet deny all 
sense of the Holy Ghost in their hearts, who 
that observes a diversity of senses amongst these 
gan give credit to their assertions ? But they 
allege, the scripture is infallible. I allow it.; 
but how is its true sense to be infallibly con- 



133 

veyed to every reader ? By human study and 
instruction ? That has led into all the differ- 
ences and disagreements about it. The plain 
truth of the matter is, nothing but the spirit of 
Divine wisdom, whence the scripture came, 
can give the genuine sense of it. For, " The 
things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit 
of God." 1 What is the infallibility of scrip- 
ture to him, who has not the infallible sense of 
it? If all had this, who have the scriptures, 
none could mistake them, nor differ with each 
other about them ; yet it is too manifest, by the 
differences among christians, they do mistake 
them. This is not to be imputed to any defect 
in the sacred writings, but to the common un- 
fitness of mens' understandings to discover the 
right sense of them. What then can open it to 
man's capacity but the holy spirit ? 

The question is not, whether the scriptures, 
as written by Divine inspiration, are infallibly 
right, for such must be so ; but whether every 
one that reads them, is able infallibly to under- 
stand them ? To pretend, if they are not clearly 
to be understood without the assistance of the 
spirit, they are given in vain, is to contradict 
the scripture, which declares that, " the mani- 
festation of the spirit is given to every man to 
profit withal." 2 It may as truly be asserted, 
that the Divine being, whilst he knows we are 
in darkness, gives us a chart to direct our way, 
and at the same time withholds the light, by 
which alone we can discover its true contents ; 
which is. .merely to mock and tantalise us, and 

1 1 Cor.ii. 11. * lCor. xii. 7. 
M 



131 

also to render our situation worse than that of 
the Jeics ; for all the written precepts of their 
law were plain and evident. Yet God gave 
them of his good spirit to instruct them ; l all 
the written doctrines of the gospel are not so, 
and is not the holy spirit as requisite to us as it 
was to them ? 

7- Scripture doctrines are of divers classes. 
They exhibit just morals, and benevolent con- 
duct between man and man, in a manner supe- 
rior to the best ethic writers in all ages and na- 
tions. These are generally and justly allowed * 
to be of natural, universal, and unalterable obli- 
gation, and are sufficiently plain and clear to the 
common sense of every man. But matters re- 
lating to faith and worship, having admitted of 
many circumstantial additions and alterations, 
according to the different dispensations of Divine 
wisdom, have not been so level to mens' under- 
standings, nor have they been so united in judg- 
ment concerning them, as in the case of moral 
duties. Ever since the collected publication of 
the New Testament, differences in opinion about 
the true sense, especially in matters of faith, 
have subsisted and abounded; and what can de- 
termine these differences? The learned A. saith. 
such a text means so and so. The learned U. 
asserts, it is to be accepted in a different, per- 
haps a contrary sense. They apply to the con- 
text, and remain still as different in opinion, 
and as positive of being in the right. They 
recur from text to text, and from critic to com- 
mentator, till they have exhausted every one 

* Ncfc.hr. ft 



139 

they can find or force to their purpose, and still 
remain equally, if not more at a distance than 
at the beginning. What is there left to deter- 
mine the matter ? Will churches or councils 
do it ? They jangle from year to year, or from 
age to age, and leave the difference as wide as 
they found it. The true sense still remains 
only with the Divine author of the disputed 
texts, and he alone is able to communicate it. 
Would it not be a wild presumption in either 
A. or JS. to boast that he will try his opponent's 
opinion by the true sense of the spirit, and at 
the same time deny, that either himself, or man, 
can have any real sense of the spirit? I have 
not here supposed a nonentity, but a case that 
has subsisted for a great many eenturies ; and 
which must always continue, whilst men prefer 
their own prejudices, imaginations, and reason- 
ings, t6 the internal leadings of the spirit of 
truth. 

8. We hold the scriptures to be a rule to all 
that have them, so far as they have a right un- 
derstanding of them, and also that they are 
adequate to the purpose intended by them: 
but we cannot aver, they are the sole, the pri- 
mary , and the universal director of mankind in 
matters of religious duty. 1. They are not 
the sole director ; because the spirit of God in 
the heart and conscience of man is also an un- 
deniable director. 2. They are not the prima- 
ry director; because the illumination of the 
holy spirit that gave them forth, is requisite to 
open the true sense of those numerous parts of 
them, about which the apprehensions of men so 
much differ. The spirit also from which the 



136 

scriptures tame, is original, and therefore pri- 
mary to them ; and as the spirit only can open 
its own true sense included in them, they are 
secondary to the spirit, as an instrument in its 
hand. 3. They are not the universal director; 
because it is not probable that one in ten, if one 
yi twenty, of mankind, have ever had the op- 
portunity of possessing them. Seeing there- 
fore this is the case, they cannot properly be 
pronounced, the complete, adequate, universal 
rule of mankind. 

Hence we esteem them the secondary rule or 
guide of christians ; which being divinely com- 
municated for the use of all to whom they may 
come, and also being intrinsically superior in 
excellence to all other writings, we prefer tbeih 
above all others, and as thankfully accept, and 
as comfortably use them, as any people upon 
earai ; verily believing, with the holy apostle, 
that they " were written for our learning, that, 
we, through patience, and comfort of the scrip- 
tures might have hope/ 91 

This is not to depreciate the scriptures, but 
to hold them in their proper place, and due su- 
periority to the works of men, and subordina- 
tion to their Supreme Communicator, and only 
sure expounder. For the holy spirit is requi- 
site to the use of them, as the agent to the instru- 
ment ; and what is an instrument without a hand 
to guide and enforce it ? And which is supe- 
rior, the agent or the instrument? The holy 
spirit is the original wisdom whence the scrip- 
tures came, and the sole power that can open* 



1 Rom. xv. 4. 



137 

and give right effects to them. The spirit of 
truth is given to guide into all truth; 1 is the on- 
ly thing that can do it, and consequently the 
supreme guide afforded to mankind. It is both 
unwarrantable and irrational, to assert any thing 
else is the sole, or primary director, whilst the 
spirit of God is communicated for that purpose. 

The same scripture-truths appear as differ- 
ently to each person, as their understandings 
differ one from another. Human intellects 
therefore must be rectified, to enable them to see 
those truths in the same sense. The rectifier is 
the spirit of truth, which alone can unite them in 
the true sense. 

We stick not to stile the scriptures collec- 
tively, a divine, or christian rule ; but we ob- 
ject to call them, The rule of faith and prac- 
tice; lest that should be understood to imply we 
are to look for nothing further to be our guide 
or leader. The scriptures themselves abun- 
dantly testify, there is something superior to 
them which all ought to look for, and attend 
unto ; that is, the holy spirit of the Supreme 
Legislator of men, and prime Author of the 
sacred writings; in and by whose light and 
power they are made instrumentally useful, and 
adequate to the purposes intended by them. 
Like a good sun-dial, they are true and perfect 
in their kind, that is, as writings ; but, respect- 
ing the parts differently understood, they may 
justly bear the same motto with the dial : Non 
sine lumine. 2 For as the dial, without the cast 
of the sun-beams, has not its proper use, to tell 

1 John, xvi. 13. 2 Useless without light. 
MS 



138 

the time of the day ; neither doth the ambiguous 
text answer its true end, infallibly to communi- 
cate the mind of the holy spirit to different un- 
derstandings, except the luminous beams of the 
sun of righteousness discover it to the attentive 
mind. 

9. Our opposers call the scriptures the pri- 
mary rule. We allow it is the primary written 
rule, and in all disputes betwixt them land us, 
we abide by its decision, according to our under- 
standing of the sense of it, which they profess 
to do likewise by theirs. In all public differ- 
ences therefore we refer intentionally to the same 
rule with them. But we have both plain scrip- 
ture and experience to support our belief, that 
respecting the particular duty of individuals, 
every one hath in his own breast, a nearer and 
more certain rule or guide of conscience than 
the scriptures ; the manifestation of the spirit 
given to every man to profit withal; which, duly 
observed, gives a right interpretation of scrip- 
ture, so far as is necessary for them, and also 
the truest sense of each particular person's duty 
to him. When a person feels the faithful wit- 
ness of God in his conscience, condemning him 
for what is wrong, and approving him for 
what is right, does he not find it to speak 
more clearly, particularly, and convictingly to 
his case and state, than he can read it in the 
scriptures? Can he then conclude, that this tru- 
ly-distinguishing and most striking witness, is 
less than that spirit of truth, or comforter, which 
convinceth the world of sin, $f righteousness, 
mid of judgment P l 

y John, xvi. 8. 



139 

When Christ, after his resurrection, opened 
the understandings of his disciples that they 
might understand the scriptures, 1 was not the 
divine illumination in their understandings, a 
more clear, certain and superior evidence of the 
sense -of them, than all their reading and study 
could have afforded them, without such illumi- 
nation? Are mankind now become so much 
more wise and penetrating, than those who far 
years had the benefit of hearing him who is per- 
fect in wisdom, that they have no need of his 
assistance to open their understanding ? Or is 
their school and college learning so perfect, as 
to render God's illumination quite needless? 
Are the innumerable clashings and j anglings of 
the book-learned about the sense of scripture, a 
proof of the unity of their sentiments, and the 
verity of their sense of disputed texts ? If so, 
discord may be a proof of harmony, and fight- 
ing of agreement. 

It is certain, without divine illumination, 
every reader of texts of a dubious sense, ac- 
cepts them in the sense his prepossessions make 
for him; which is the cause of tl*e innumerable 
differences amongst professing christians. R. 
Barclay therefore justly denies, that Divine in- 
ward revelations are to be subjected to the test 
either of the outward testimony of the scrip- 
tures, or of the natural reason of man, as to a 
more noble, or certain rule or touchstone. 

T Luke, xxiv. 45. 



140 
CHAP. XIL 

1. The 2 Tim. iii. 15. &c. explained. 2. What true 
Gospel-Faith comprehends. 

1. The apostle writing to his beloved brother 
in Christ, Timothy, who in his former epistle, 
he stiles a man of God, addresses him in par- 
ticular with this expression. " From a child thou 
hast known the Holy scriptures, which are able 
to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus. *A11 scripture given 
by divine inspiration, is profitable for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness, that the man of God may he per- 
fect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." l 
To add wisdom to the man of God, the rege- 
nerate man, in order to his perfection in divine 
knowledge, appears to me a very different 
thing from the making a sinful corrupt man 
holy, or turning a gross and miserable sinner 
into a saint ; for this, according to scripture, is 
the peculiar work of the Holy Spirit ; as I have 
already made appear. 

The scriptures Timothy had been instructed 
in from his childhood, could hardly be any 
other than those of the Old Testament ; and all 
they could here be meant to do for the man of 
Grod, must be to afford him instruction in the 
way of righteousness ; to add to his own expe- 
rience, the experiences of those before him in 
that line. For to suppose they were sufficient 

*I cite this as it ought to be translated. '11 Tim. 
\\\. 15,16, 17. 



141 

to regenerate and perfect the sinful corrupt 
man, is more than they are able now to do, even 
with the New Testament added to them. 

The sinful corrupt man is certainly he that 
abides in sinful practices ; and the apostle saith, 
"He that committeth sin is of the Devil." 1 

I judge this a proper opportunity to caution 
against such corrupt and dangerous positions 
as some have publicly avowed. 

1. That man, at the same time he is actually 
unrighteous in himself, is righteous in Christ 
That is, he is not what he is in reality, but 
what he persuades himself to be, by a false 
imagination concerning the sacrifice of Christ ; 
like that generation who are pure in their own 
eyes ^ yet are not washed from their jilthiness.* 

2. That the supreme essense of immutable 
Truth, looks upon man in a false light ; esteem- 
ing him pnre, whilst he knows him to be sinful 
and corrupt. 

3. That Christ, the truth, is a false medium, 
shewing the states of men contrary to what they 
are in reality. 

4. That man is the servant of Christ whilst 
he is under the influence of Antichrist ; that he 
is imputatively" holy, whilst he is ruled by the 
author of pollution, the adversary of all holi- 
ness ; and that he is acting iii the will of God, 
whilst he is doing the works of the Devil ; not- 
withstanding we read, "To whom ye yield 
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are 
to whom ye obey ; whether of sin unto death, or 
of obedience unto righteousness." 3 

1 1 John, iii, 8. *Prov. xxx. 12. 3 Rcm. vi. 1 6. 



143 

It is a vain delusion for any to expect, that 
purity in the highest perfection should unite 
with them, whilst they remain in the very cause 
of separation from him. Sin made the separa- 
tion at first, and the continuance of it continues 
the separation. If it be queried, Did not Christ 
die to reconcile sinners to God ? I answer, yes ; 
but not to reconcile God to sin, nor to save sin. 
He suffered not to purchase a license for sinners 
to continue such, but to open the way for them 
to come to repentance, through the gift of God 
procured by' him ; for, saith he, " Except ye 
repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 1 He 
came, not to uphold, but to destroy the works of 
the Devil ; which include all manner of sin and 
corruption. " Know ye not," saith the man of 
God, " that the unrighteous shall not inherit the 
kingdom of God ? Be not deceived ; neither 
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor 
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with man- 
kind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, 
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the 
kingdom of God." 2 The notion of imputa- 
tive righteousness to such as remain in the com- 
mission of these evils, therefore, is a vain and 
pernicious error. 

We must die to sin, or we cannot live to God : 
and in proportion as we die to sin, we live in 
Christ, and no further. We must put on Christ, 
by true faith and obedience, which are never 
separate; for that is a false faith, which abides 
in, or satisfies any, without obedience. " Faith 
without works is dead," 3 saith the servant of 

1 Luke, xiii. 5. 2 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. 3 James, ii. 20. 



143 

Christ; and " shew me thy faith without thy 
works, and I will shew thee my faith by my 
works." 1 

The law saith, do, or avoid, this, and live. 
The gospel not only forbids the outward act, 
but also restrains the inward desire and motion 
towards it. The law saith, Thou shalt not 
kill ; nor commit adultery ; nor forswear thy- 
self, &c. The gospel commands, give not place 
to anger; thou shalt not lust; swear not at all, &c. 
In this manner, the gospel destroys not the mo- 
ral law, but fulfils it ; by taking away the ground 
of sinful acts, and laying the axe of the spirit 
to the root of corruption. 

Can the considerate imagine, that the ever- 
lasting source of wisdom and might, can be at a 
loss how to expel Satan's kingdom in man whilst 
upon earth? Or can they think him so de- 
lighted with mens' offences against his purity 
and goodness, as to will that Satan should reign 
over his creatures to the last moment of their 
lives? Is it not more to his glory to deliver 
from the power of evil, and to save both from 
sin here, and misery hereafter, than to save 
only from wretchedness in futurity ? Is a part 
greater than the whole ? Or, is an incomplete 
deliverance preferable, or more glorious, than 
that which is perfect ? 

When doctrines opposite to purification of 
heart, and holiness of life, are industriously 
propagated, it stands every one in hand to be 
alarmed, lest, by giving place to them in their 
minds, they become blinded through the deceit - 

1 James, ii. IS. 



144 

fulness of sin ; which will centre them at last 
m a fool's paradise, instead of the city of God, 
the heavenly Jerusalem, into which nothing that 
dejileth, that worketh abomination, or maketh a 
lie, shall in any -wise enter. 1 

2. The ability in the scriptures, as before 
cited, to enlarge the man of God in saving 
wisdom, the apostle saith, is through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus. 

What true gospel faith is, let us a little con- 
sider. As the entrance of the Divine word 
quickeneth the soul, so it first communicates a 
degree of faith, through which it operates; for 
true faith is the gift of God, 2 and the holy spi- 
rit is the spirit of faith ; 3 which is not a bare 
belief of truths concerning Christ, but a faith 
in him. 4 The faith in Christ is not comprised 
in giving credit to narrations and doctrines, and 
a mode of practice framed by the wisdom of 
men upon it; for that centres short of the es- 
sential substance of faith. Gospel faith ki man 
believes the truth of all that is revealed by the 
spirit, both in the heart, and in the sacred writ- 
ings : because it feels it, savours it, and is one 
with it. It not only assents to the scriptural 
accounts of the incarnation and whole process 
of Christ in Judea; but it also receives his in- 
ternal appearance, consents to his operation, and 
concurs with it. 

That faith which stands wholly upon hearsay, 
tradition, reading, or imagination, is but a dis- 
tant kind of ineffectual credence, which permits 

1 Rev. xxi. 27. 2 1 Cor. xii.9. and Col. ii. 12. 3 2 Cor. 
iv.13. * 2Tim.iii. 17. 



145 

the soul to remain in the bondage of corruption? 
The wicked may go this length towards gospel 
faith ; but the true faith lays hold of, and cleaves 
to the spirit of truth, in its inward manifestations; 
wherein it stands, and whereby it grows, till the 
heart is purified, the world overcome, and sal- 
vation obtained. 

This faith is as a flame of pure love in the 
heart to God. It presseth towards him, panteth 
after him, resigns to him, confides and lives in 
him. The mystery of it is held in a pure con- 
science, 1 and in the effective power of the ever- 
lasting gospel ; whence the christian dispensa- 
tion, in holy writ, is often distinguished from the 
exterior dispensation of the Mosaic law, and 
the prior administration of angels in visible ap- 
pearances, by the appellation of Faith. 

Though the term faith is occasionally used 
by the penmen of scripture in divers, yet not 
contrary, but consistent senses, this seems to be 
the one standing faith mentioned, Eph. iv. 5. 
which is in Christ Jesus, as it is the fruit of his 
grace and good spirit in the heart. Through 
this the scriptures become effectually instructive 
to the man of God, and helpful to the real chris- 
tian in the way of life and salvation. It is the 
faith by which the members of Christ truly live, 
and ubide as such* It is their invincible shield; 
and the knowledge of Christ in them is the 
proof of their possessing it. 2 Abundance is said 
of the nature, power, and effects of this all-con- 
quering faith ; but I hope this will be sufficient 

1 1 Tim. iii. 9. 2 Rom. i. 17. Gal. ii. 20. and iii< 11. 
Heb.x.38. Ephrvi. 16. 2 Cor. xiiL 5. Heb.xi. - 

N 



tO! 



146 



shew, though, in its complete sense, it includes 
a belief of all that is said of Christ, and by 
Christy in holy writ, it goes deeper, and ariseth 
not in man merely from the man, but takes its 
birth, and receives its increase from the opera- 
tion of the holy spirit in him ; which works by 
it to the sanctification of the heart, and the pro> 
duction of every christian virtue. 



CHAP. XIII. 

1. Spiritual things how understood* The true Gos- 
pel shewn. 2. Concerning the economy of the 
Quakers, wherein the Nature and Manner of their 
worship is explained. S. The Scriptures placed 
in their proper light. 4. Concerning Revelation 
objective and subjective, immediate and instru- 
mental. 

1. " The things of God knoweth no man, but 
the spirit of God;" 1 therefore the apostle de- 
clares, " We have received, not the spirit of the 
world, but the spirit which is of God ; that we 
might know the things that are freely given to 
us of God." 2 — " But the natural man receiveth 
not the things of the spirit of God, for they are 
foolishness unto him; neither can he know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned." 3 
Hence it is clear, that he who hath not the know- 
ledge of spiritual things by the manifestation of 
(he spirit of God, hath not the true knowledge 
of them, imagine what he will of his other m& 

1 1 Cor. \u 11 . 2 Verse 12* 3 Verse 14. 



147 

quiremcnts ; and he must find himself at last 
upon the sandy foundation of vain opinion. 

The apostle follows this by asserting, " The 
spiritual man judgeth all things." * That is, 
the man who is rendered spiritual, by the renew- 
ing influence of the Holy Spirit, has, through 
the shining of divine light upon his mind, a 
clear discerning of all those spiritual matters it 
concerns him to know ; which it is impossible 
for the natural man rightly to comprehend. 

We read, that "life and immortality are 
brought to light by the gospel." 2 But what is 
this life and immortality ? Did not mankind 
believe in a future state before the incarnation 
of Christ? Yes certainly. Both Jews and Gen- 
tiles believed and held the truth of it. What 
life and immortality then is that which is pecu- 
liar to the gospel, and which it is its particular 
property to unveil? It consists not wholly in 
the relation of the external procedure and doc- 
trines of our Lord, but mainly in that spiritual 
gift he procured for us through his sufferings, 
which is the life and power that the immortal 
spirit of God manifests in the believing and obe- 
dient soul ; that spirit which quickens those who 
have been dead in trespasses and sins, and there- 
in alienated from the life of God. 3 The very 
essence of the gospel, is the issuing forth of this 
spirit of life to the hearts of men. i' Keep thy 
heart with all diligence," saith the wise man, 
" for out of it are the issues of lifeP* This 
teacheth that these living issues arise in the 
lieart of man, but not from the heart itself. 

1 1 Cor.ii 15. 2 2 Tim. i. 10. 3 Eph iv. 18. 4 Prov. iv.28, 



148 

Was it so, the heart or soul would be its own 
quickener and saviour, and Christ would he ex- 
cluded as such ; but he alone is the way, the 
truth, and the life; 1 therefore the issuings of life 
to the beaut are from the spirit, and in and 
through it by his spirit. The divine influence 
of it is the life of the soul, that which renders it 
living ; and void of this, it cannot be in a gospel 
sense, a living soul. It may endure to eternity, 
but mere duration is not this divine life. To 
exist without this life, is to be scripturally dead; 
it is therefore requisite for the soul to wait for, 
feel after, and find this immortal life, and also 
to keep to it with all diligence, that it may ex- 
perience the daily issues thereof to its comfort 
and preservation ; and to be as " a well of water 
springing up into everlasting life." 2 

I understand the propitiatory sacrifice of 
our Saviour, by which he opens the door of re- 
conciliation for us, to be the initiatory part of 
man's salvation, and the internal work of rege- 
neration by his spirit, to be its actual completion ; 
for thereby an entrance is administered into the 
heavenly kingdom. 

No man can have the influence of the inspir- 
ed sentiments of the book of God, without re- 
ceiving those inspired sentiments, which I have 
sufficiently shewn, no man hath who reads with- 
out the inspiring power. Every reader hath 
only his own conceptions about the sentiments 
inspired of God, and not those real sentiments, 
without a degree of inspiration from him ; which 
the manifest mistakes and contradictions of many 
demonstrate they are strangers to. 

* John, xiv. C\ 2 John. iv. 14. 



149 

2. The people called Quakers give such 
preference to the scriptures above all other 
writings, that they strictly press the frequent 
reading of them, and call for answers at every 
quarterly-meeting throughout the Society, and 
at the general yearly- meetings, from every par- 
ticular quarterly meeting, whether the holy 
scriptures are constantly read in their families, 
or not; which they neither do, nor ever did, 
respecting any of their own writings, or any 
ethers. 

They recommend silence and stillness in 
their religious assemblies; and as our manner 
of worship is misunderstood by many, and of- 
ten treated with ridicule, I shall take this op- 
portunity to offer some explanation of it. 

We look upon divine worship to be the most 
solemn act the mind of man is capable of being 
engaged in; and in consideration of the high 
and inconceivable majesty of Almighty God, 
think it our duty to approach him with the 
greatest reverence. Every thinking person, 
who is in any degree sensible of the love and. 
fear of God, must esteem it an awful thing, to 
present himself to the especial notice of the in- 
finite omnipresent Eternal Being. Under a sense 
of this, the wise man adviseth, " Keep thy foot 
when thou goest to the house of God" or enters 
upon worship, " and be more ready to hear, 
than to give the sacrifice of fools ; for they con- 
sider not that they do evil. Be not rash with 
thy month, and let not thine heart be hasty to 
utter any thing before God; for God is in hea- 
ve% and thon upon earth, therefore let thy 

n £ 



"WC 



150 



ords be few." 1 He Avell knew, as be ex 
presses it, that both " the preparation of the 
hearty and the answer of the tongue is from the 
Lord." 2 This accords with what our Saviour 
saith, "Without me ye can do nothing." 3 We> 
therefore, cannot perform divine worship ac- 
ceptably but by his assistance. This must be 
received in spirit ; for, saith the apostle, " The 
spirit also helpeth our infirmities ; for we know 
not ichat we should pray for as we ought." 4 * 
This being as certainly our case, as it was that 
of the apostles and primitive believers, it is in- 
cumbent on us to wait for that spirit which is 
requisite to help our infirmities, in order to pray 
as we ought. No forms of devotion of mens' 
invention can supply the place of the spirit. 
The same apostle further saith, " Through him 
we both have an access, by one spirit unto the 
Father." 5 Seeing therefore, that both our help 
and access is through the spirit of Christ, the 
renewal of which is at his pleasure, and not 
ours, we must necessarily wait for it. This 
waiting must be in stillness of mind from the 
common course of our thoughts, from all wan- 
dering imaginations, and also in silence from 
the expression of words; for the utterance of 
words is not waiting, but acting. 

Words are requisite to convey the sense of 
one person to another, but not to that omniscient 
Being who is an universal spirit, and every w here 
Almighty; who therefore stands not in need, 
either of the use of corporeal organs, instru- 

a Eccles. v. 1. 2 Prov. xvi. 1. 3 John, xv. 5. 4 Rom. 
viii.26. 5 Eph.ii. 18. 



151 

inents, or the sound of words, to communicate 
with the spirit of man. 

If, in order to worship, the mind do not set- 
tle into stillness, the passions will be at work, 
and may agitate it into enthusiastic heats, and 
vague imaginations. But in true stillness, and 
singleness of soul towards God, they are si- 
lenced and subjected. The still small voice of 
the inspirer of all good then comes to be heard, 
and the mind being closely engaged in attention 
thereunto, and answering it in faith and humble 
submission, feels divine life and love spring up, 
and receives ability therein, truly to worship the 
great author of its existence, and heavenly sup- 
plier of its wants, with a devotion no forms can 
reach. 

This worship is not entered upon by totally 
laying aside our faculties, and falling into a 
senseless stupor, as superficial observers have 
imagined ; but by a real introversion of mind, 
and an attention fixed singly upon the alone ob- 
ject of all adoration, in patient yet fervent desire 
after him. Thus, according to the Hebrew, the 
experienced psalmist advises, " Be silent to the 
Lord, and wait patiently for him ; ?n and respect- 
ing his own practice, he saith, " Truly my soul 
is silent upon God," adding this cogent reason, 
" from him cometh my salvation." 2 Verse 5, he 
applies the exhortation to himself, " My soul, 
wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is 
from him." Great encouragement he had thus 
to wait, as appears, Psal. xl. where he saith, "I 
waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined 

1 Psal. xxxvii. 7. 2 Ibid, Ixii. 1. 



152 

unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up 
also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, 
and set my feet upon a rock, and established my 
goings; and he hath put a new song into my 
mouth, even praise unto our God." This was 
no new song in itself, but being sensibly renew- 
ed to him in his acceptable waiting, he, with 
sufficient propriety, stiies it so. 

To the same practical and profitable doctrine 
Jeremiah bears testimony. " It is good that a 
man should both hope, and quietly wait for the 
salvation," or saving help, " of the Lord. It 
is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his 
youth. He sitteth alone, and Jceepeth silence, 
because he hath borne it upon him." 1 

Silent waiting was in practice among the pro- 
phets, and those that attended them, as appears 
in the prophecy of Ezekiel. We find the spirit 
of the prophet was engaged in divine vision, 
whilst the elders of Judah sate before him, as it 
is described from the 1st verse of the viiith chap- 
ter, to the 4th of the xith chapter. During the 
time of which vision, it cannot be consistently 
supposed, that he was either speaking to them, 
or they to him, or to each other. This was not 
a singular instance of their meeting together; 
for it was the manner of God's people to con- 
gregate with the prophets, as that close repre- 
hension plainly indicates. " They come unto 
thee as the people cometh, and they sit before 
thee as my people, and they hear thy words, 
but they will not do them." 2 

In this solemn practice, we have often been 

1 Lam.iii. 26, 27, 28. 2 Eze. xxxiii, 31. 



153 

enabled thankfully to acknowledge the verity of 
that gracious declaration of our Lord, " Where 
two or three are gathered together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them;" 1 the fulfill- 
ing of that promise, " They that wait upon the 
Lord shall renew their strength ;" 2 the certainty 
of that assertion, " The Lord is good unto them 
that wait far him, to the soul that seeketh him;" 3, 
and the necessity and authority of that just com- 
mand, " Be still, and know that 1 am God." 4 

As silent waiting appears to us, in the first 
place, requisite to the worship of Grod in spirit 
and truth, it is always our practice, for we be- 
lieve he ought to have the direction of our hearts 
therein ; and if he please to influence any one, 
under due preparation, vocally to appear, either 
by way of address to himself in prayer, or to us 
in preaching, we never preclude such appear- 
ances, but silently assist according to our mea- 
sures. If it prove that none are so concerned 
to speak, we sit the time through in silence, 
wherein true mental worship is often experi- 
enced ; but never appoint any meeting, with in- 
tent, that it shall be held throughout in silence, 
as some have mistakenly imagined ; for we be- 
lieve that all ought to be led and guided by the 
good spirit of God, more especially in the so- 
lemn acts of divine worship. It would be an 
happy thing, were all so led, amongst us as well 
as others ; but the case appears otherwise with 
too many, who sit unconcerned, in expectation 
of hearing the ministry, instead of waiting upon 

*Mat. xviii. 20. 2 Isa. xl. 31, 3 Lam. iii. 25. 4 Psal. 
slvi. 10. 






154 



God, and therefore often meet with disappoint- 
ment. The apostle said in his age, " they are 
not all Israel, which are of Israel" 1 So we 
must acknowledge, all who have descended 
from faithful ancestors, are not themselves faith- 
ful ; but the defect is in themselves, and not in 
the principle, 

3. We profess, that the spirit of truth ought 
to be ours, and every man's leader ; and that 
this spirit is an infallible principle, and that so 
far as any faithfully follow it, they are infallibly 
led, and no further ; but we never did, nor do 
profess that all in society with us are so led, or 
even sufficiently seek to be so. Nor was it the 
case amongst the primitive christians them- 
selves. We well know, and freely own, that 
we have all sinned, and come short of the glory 
of God, and that without repentance and re- 
generation, we must for ever fall short of it. 
We are also sensible, that upon due confession, 
submission, and sincere obedience to the mani- 
festations of Christ, the light of men, " he is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to 
cleanse us from all unrighteousness ;" 2 and if 
we " walk in the light, as he is in the light, we 
have fellowship one with another, and the blood 
of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." 3 

With regard to the scriptures, I have declared 
our sense concerning them ; and shall only add, 
that we hold them to be the best written stand- 
ard of belief and practice that we know of in 
the world. We venerate them for the sake of 
the great Author they came from, and seek to 

1 Rom. ix. 6. * 1 John, i. 9. 'Verse 7, 




155 

him for the right understanding and proper use 
of them ; believing him who alone can open the 
true sense of them, and accompany it with 
power to enable us effectually to put it in prac- 
tice, to be the primary guide, and therefore 
ought always to have our principal attention ; 
ever esteeming ourselves in duty bound, in the 
first place, to look unto Jesus, the author and 
finisher of our faith. 1 As "the life is more 
than meat, and the body than raiment," 2 so is 
the immediate influence of the Spirit of Christ 
more than the scriptures, or than any man's, or 
people's private or partial interpretation of them; 
from whence have arisen all the differences that 
subsist about them, and which must ever re- 
main to be the case, till the Holy Spirit itself 
is applied and attended to, as the right inter- 
preter, and supreme standard of faith and prac- 
tice. This is the original essential primary 
guide ; and that revelation which comes imme- 
diately from the Spirit of God into a man's 
heart, is certainly the primary one ; and that 
which he receives through instrumental means, 
is as certainly but a secondary one. 

% Barclay distinguishes revelation into objec- 
tive, and subjective, and sometimes he speaks of 
the one, and sometimes of the other. In order to 
shew the propriety of this distinction, let me 
observe, that the soul of man hath not only a 
faculty of cogitation, by which it ordinarily 
thinks, unites, divides, compares* or forms ideas, 
but also a latent power of internal sensation, or 
of perceiving spiritual objects by an inward and 

1 Heb. xii. 2, 2 Luke, xii. 23. 



136 

spiritual sense, when presented through a pro- 
per medium; which, till the beams of divine 
light shine upon it, it must be as totally unac- 
quainted with, as the child in its mother's womb 
is with its faculties of sight and hearing. For 
though in that situation, it may be completely 
formed, and possess every organ proper to cor- 
poreal sensation, yet it is not empowered to ex- 
ercise them, or really to know it hath them, till 
it be brought forth into the medium necessary to 
the use of them, composed of the light and air 
of this world. Then it first finds the peculiar 
sense, and exercise of those natural powers, 
which, before its birth, it could not have the least 
understanding, or proper use of. In like man- 
ner, the natural man must be delivered out of his 
natural darkness, into the luminous and quick- 
ening influence of that divine word, or spirit, 
which is most emphatically stiled the true light 
and life of men. Thus born of the spirit, into 
this proper medium of divine knowledge, the 
soul is made acquainted with that spiritual 
sense it could neither discover, nor believe per- 
tained to it, whilst in its natural state. This is 
no new natural faculty added, but its own men- 
tal power newly opened, and brought into its 
due place and use. 

Words are inadequate to the expression of 
this internal sense felt in the soul under divine 
influence. It cannot be ideally conveyed to the 
understanding of the unexperienced ; for it is 
not an image, but a sensation, impossible to be 
conceived but by its own impression. So true 
is that of the apostle, " Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of 






157 

man, the things which God hath prepared for 
them that love him; but God hath revealed 
them unto us by his spirit," 1 It was upon this 
consideration that I said, divine light is the sub- 
ject of inward sensation, " and is not to be com- 
municated from one to another by reasoning, or 
verbal description." For should any person 
give the most clear and lively description pos- 
sible of the light of the sun, to a man blind 
from his birth, it would only be communicating 
an ideal notion of the light, but not the light 
itself. It might be called a subjective revela- 
tion concerning the light to him, but not an ob- 
jective one of the light itself. This no man can 
have but by his own immediate sensation. 

Divine revelation is a disclosure of something 
to the rational mind by the Holy Ghost, not in 
the mind's own power to discover. This the 
Holy Spirit doth, either by unveiling of itself 
by its influence in some degree to the soul, and 
giving it an internal sense of its presence ; or 
by favouring it with the vision of other objects, 
real or representative, through the communica- 
tion of divine light and power ; or by giving 
the soul a clear sense of its own state and con- 
dition. All this being a discovery of objects, is 
called objective revelation. 

Subjective revelation is a disclosure of sub- 
jects, or things relative, through the inspiration 
of the Holy Spirit ; by which the mind is open- 
ed into the knowledge of the divine will con- 
cerning persons or things, led into the true sense 
of scriptures, or into a deeper understanding of 

MCor.ii. 9, 10. 
o 



158 

doctrines than it could ever reach without di~ 
vine illumination. Of (his kind was the origi- 
ginal revelation of the scriptures to those who 
penned them. 

All this, both objective and subjective, is truly 
internal immediate revelation. What is now 
modishly treated as the only revelation still ex- 
isting, and to exist, is rather the fruit of reve- 
lation than the thing itself; a scriptural record 
of things revealed, for they certainly were so 
to those to whom they were immediately dis- 
closed ; but the different senses put upon the 
many disputed parts of them, for many genera- 
tions past, demonstrate those parts are not truly 
a revelation to those who mistake them ; nor 
can they ever become such to them, till they 
know the Holy Author to be their interpreter. 
For, "No prophecy of scripture is of any 
private interpretation. For the prophecy came 
not in old time," or rather, at any time, u by 
the will of man, but holy men of God spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 1 

1 l Pet. I £0,21. 



159 



CHAP. XIV. 

1. Impious Idolaters, &c. not in Christ; but he ap- 
pears in them as a swift Witness. To whom he 
communicates saving Knowledge. 2. The Gos- 
pel comes not in Word only, hut in power, and 
Christ not only came outwardly, but also appears 
inwardly; and by the powerful operation of his 
Spirit effects all our Works in us. He is the real 
Efficient of all Good in Man. 3. The Gospel 
sensibly preached in every Man. The Office of 
the Spirit of Truth. 4. Concerning our T^rms 
of Admission. 5. A day, or time of Visitation to 
Man demonstrated. 

1, 1 believe that idolaters, and those guilty 
of immoralities, have all at times felt the re- 
proving witness of God in their consciences, 
which gives them a convicting knowledge of 
him ; and if they continue to rebel against this 
light, they become so darkened towards it, that 
" they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in 
the paths thereof." 1 Not liking to retain God 
in their knowledge, after long forbearance, he 
gives them over to a reprobate mind. 2 Our 
principle teaches, that the grace of God that 
bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, 
first as a convictor, or convincer of sin. Thus 
it stands at the door of man's heart and knocks 
for entrance ; and if the heart opens to it, and 
abides in the ability it furnishes, sincerely de- 
siring, and seeking to obey its motions, it will, 
by due degrees, increase that ability therein, till 

1 Jeb, xxiv. IS. z Rom. i. £8, 



160 

it prove itself the power of God unto salvation 
to it. Then, and not till then, the mind is sen- 
sible of the saving knowledge of this Divine 
principle ; yet, before this, whilst the soul knew 
nothing more of it than merely its convictions, it 
could not be said to be totally ignorant of an in- 
ternal immediate sense of that grace which is 
saving, both in its nature and intention, though 
it was not indued with the saving knowledge 
of it. 

2. We have all along uniformly acknowledg- 
ed, the Gospel came in word as well as in 
power ; but not in word only, but also in power, 
even in the power of the Holy Ghost. 1 And, 
we are sensible, that this Divine power, from 
whence the words sprang, is the very essence 
of the gospel, and the words but the outward 
expression, or exterior declaration by which it 
is preached and recommended. To this essen- 
tial internal grace, power and spirit of God, the 
apostles called and pressed their hearers, as 
well as to the belief of the outward advent and 
process of the Messiah then past. They taught 
them, that " Christ was once offered to bear the 
sins of many, and unto them that look for him, 
shall he appear the second time, without sin 
unto salvation" 2 This second appearance of 
Christ, we do not understand to intend his 
coming to judgment at the great day of general 
decision; for then he will come both to deter- 
mine the final state of the righteous and un- 
righteous ; not to salvation only, but to con- 
demnation also. But this second appearance 

1 1 Thes. i. 5. 2 Heb. ix. 28, 



161 

is in order to the salvation of those who look for 
him to that end. Accordingly, the apostle thus 
prays for* the believers; "The Lord direct your 
hearts into the love of God, and into the patient 
waiting for Christ;" 1 and he describes the Co- 
rinthians as " waiting for the coming," or 
renewed appearance, " of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 2 

Notwithstanding our Saviour empowers and 
employs his messengers to declare his will, and 
to call people to the work of repentance and 
regeneration ; yet he constitutes them not as 
deputies to do the work for him. It is not the 
words they deliver, nor any application man, 
by his own powers, can make of them, which 
can perform this great business. " Lord" saith 
the prophet, " thou wilt ordain peace for us ; 
for thou also hast wrought all our works in 
us." 3 The Spirit of the High and Holy One is 
the true efficient of all the real good that is done, 
all the virtue that is wrought, either in the 
church in general, or any of its members. It is 
the spirit that (a) giveth understanding, and 
unveils the knowledge of the things of God; 

1 2 Thes. Hi. 5. 2 1 Cor. i. 7. 3 Isa. xxvi. 12. 

a u I said, days should speak, and multitude of years 
should teach wisdom. But there is a spirit in man, and 
the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understand- 
ing." Job. xxxiL 7. 8. ''Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man, the tilings 
which God hath prepared for them that love him. But 
God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit ; for the 
spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 
For whatman knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit 
of man which is in him ? Even so, the things of God know- 
eth no man, but the spirit of God." 1 Cor. ii. 9 5 10, 11. 

o8 



(ft) quickeneth and mdketh alive, (c) mortifies, 
(d) circumcises, (e) baptizes, (f) sanctifies, (g) 
regenerates, (h) sets free, (i) strengthens, and 
enables to obedience. In the Spirit is (k) the 
true light, (I) the life, (m) the love, {n) the 

b " It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth 
nothing." John, vi. 63. " Tke letter killeth, but the spirit 
givethiife." 2 Cor. iii. 6. " If the spirit of him that raised 
up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you, he that raised up 
Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bo- 
dies, by his spirit that dwelleth in you" Rom. viii. 11. 

c 4< If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ; but if ye 
through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye 
shall live." Rom. viii. 13. 

d " Circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, and 
not in the letter." Rom.u. 2. 

e " By one spirit we are all baptized into one body/ 5 
1 Cor. xii. 13. 

f " But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are 
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit 
of our God." 1 Cor. vi. 11. 

g " Except a man be born of water and the^spirit, he 
cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is 
born of the flesh, is flesh ; and that which is born of the spi- 
rit, is spirit." John. iii. 5. 6. 

h " The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath 
made me free from the law of sin and death." Rom. viii. 2. 

i " That he would grant you, according to the riches of 
his glory, to be strengthened with might, by his spirit, in 
the inner man." Eph. iii. 16. 

k " In him was life, and the life was the light of men." — 
"That was the true light which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world." John, U 4. 9. " God who com- 
manded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in 
our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God, in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Cor. iv. 6. 
I " The spirit giveth life." 2 Cor. iii. 6. 
m " Who also declared unto us your love in the spirit." 
Col. IS. 

n " We through the spirit wait for the hope of righteous- 
ness, by faith." GaL v* 5. 



163 

waiting, (o) the walking, (p) the fellowship, 
and communion of the gospel; in the Spirit (q) is 
true prayer made, (r) access to the throne of 
grace opened, and acceptable worship perform- 
ed. The Spirit is (s) the covering of God's 
people, (t) their guide, (u) their leader, (w) 
their comforter, (x) their seal, the infelt earnest 
of an everlasting inheritance to them ; and, in 
sum, the all-effective power and virtue of the 
gospel ministration; all which the scriptures 
here under cited undeniably evidence. 

o * If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit." 
Gal. v. 25. 

p "If any fellowship of the spirit." Phil. ii. 1. "Have 
been all made to drink into one spirit." 1 Cor. xii. 13. 

q " The spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know 
not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself 
maketh intercession for us," &c. Rom. viii. 26. " Pray- 
ing always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, 
and watching thereunto with all perseverance." Eplu vi. 1 8. 
Praying in the Holy Ghost." Jnde, 20. 

r " Through him we both have an access by one spirit 
unto the Father." Eph. ii. 18. 

s " Wo to the rebellious children — that cover with a co- 
vering, but not of my spirit." Isa. xxx. 1. 

t " When he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide 
you into all truth." John, xvi. 3. 

u " If ye be led by the spirit ye are not under the law." 
Gal. v. 1 8. " As many as are led by the spirit of God, they 
are the sons of God." Rom. viii. 14. 

w " I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another 
comforter that he may abide with you for ever ; even the 
spirit of truth." John, xiv. 1 6, IT. 

x " God who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest 
of the spirit in our hearts." 2 Cor. i. 22. — " In whom also, 
after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit 
of promise." Eph. i. 13—" Grieve not the Holy Spirit of 
God, whereby ye are sealed, unto the day of redemption.' 9 
Ibid. iv. 30. 



164 

3. In all these respects the holy spirit ope- 
rated in common amongst the primitive believ- 
ers. For the continuation of the same spiritual 
operations, it is that we plead, and not that of 
miraculous gifts ; which were always extraor- 
dinary, and afforded but to few in comparison 
of the whole number of the primitives. 

When any man does right, conscience ap- 
proves, and when he does wrong, it condemns 
him. This is generally called conscience, be- 
cause it is something of God appearing in the 
mind, and giving it a conscious sense of right 
and wrong respecting its own acts. No man 
could know it makes these just distinctions with- 
out a sense of them. What is inward convic- 
tion for evil but a sense of guilt? And, what 
is the genuine effect of guilt, but remorse? 
What does remorse lead to, but repentance ? 
And what is repentance, but the doctrine of the 
gospel ? Every rational creature under heaven, 
therefore, having this sensation, hath the gospel 
preached in him or her by this righteous princi- 
ple, agreeable to Col. i. 23. But we always un- 
derstand the natural conscience, and the light 
of God's spirit appearing in the conscience, as 
different principles. 

Our Lord shewed his disciples that the spirit 
of truth, the comforter, should not only bring to 
their remembrance what he had told them, shew 
them things to come, and lead them into all 
truth ; but it should likewise reprove the world 
of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. 1 
Whether this Divine visitor appears to the mind 

1 John, xv. and xvi. 



165 

of man, in words, or without words, by the sen- 
sations of compunction and remorse ; whether in 
the sharpness of reproof, or the healing touches 
of consolation ; whether it manifests itself as 
light, or sheds its life and love into the heart ; 
whether it darts upon it as lightning, or settles 
it in a holy serenity ; fills it with faith, or in- 
flames it with zeal : in all these ways, seeing it 
proceeds not by messenger, but by its own im- 
mediate communication to the rational soul of 
man, it is properly stiled internal immediate 
revelation. 

This Divine principle is a living source of 
truth and virtue in man, without which, exterior 
laws and precepts would little avail ; and when, 
through faithfulness thereunto, it is enlarged and 
advanced over all in the soul, it is found to be 
a sure foundation, which neither the wisdom of 
the wise, the reasonings of the confident, the 
jugglings of the crafty, the derision of the revi- 
ler, the rage of the persecutor, nor even the 
gates of hell can prevail against. 

4. Our terms for the admission of members, 
are, a free and unforced conscientious acquies- 
cence upon principle, with the essential doctrines 
of truth and real Christianity, and the rules of 
the society founded thereon, and not upon mere 
external appearances. The Divine principle 
itself is our bond of union, and the holy scrip- 
tures are our articles. Christ once in the flesh, 
and always in spirit, are fundamentals with us. 
We require no subscription to articles of human 
invention. 

As to differences in opinion amongst us ; 
whilst professors of the same faith differ in 



166 

years and experience, in capacity and opportu- 
nity, in education and associates, in faithfulness 
or unfaithfulness to their principles, there must 
be different opinions and practices. When the 
believers in the primitive age of Christianity 
grew numerous, it was the case amongst them, 
and in all societies ever since. What we assert 
is, that the one holy spirit leads all that faith- 
fully follow it into sameness of doctrine, and 
unity of love; and that all who profess to be 
followers of Christ, ought to be led by his spi- 
rit ; but that all, either of our own society, or 
any other, are so led, we are far from asserting 
or believing. 

5. Men ought carefully to embrace the day 
of their visitation, and follow the advice of our 
Saviour, who saith, " While ye have the light, 
believe in the light, that ye may be the children 
of light." 1 This is the only way to escape the 
dreadful consequences of continuing in rebellion 
against it. And, is it not a comfort to all men, 
that they are allowed this opportunity ? 

That there is such a time and opportunity, 
and that it may be lost to apostatisers past re- 
demption, is evident from that awful passage, 
Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6. " It is impossible for those 
who were once enlightened, and have tasted of 
the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of 
the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the good 
word of God, and the powers of the world to 
come; if they shall fall away, to renew them 
again unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to 
themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him 
to an open shame." 

* John, xii. 36. 



167 

This passage evinces, 1st. that persons may 
become sensible partakers of the Holy Ghost, 
and taste of that Divine power which is the 
eternal life of the blessed in the world to come. 
3d. That they may apostatise from this condi- 
tion to such a degree, that repentance, and con- 
sequently salvation, shall become impossible to 
them. 3d. That they bring this upon them- 
selves, because they crucify to themselves the 
Son of God afresh, and put him to an open 
shame ; they reject and rebel against the invi- 
tations of his spirit in themselves, till they oc- 
casion it to forsake them ; whereby the Divine 
witness is spiritually crucified and slain as to its 
life in them, and the christian name openly re- 
proached through their evil conduct and exam- 
ple. This is further illustrated by a simile in 
the two succeeding verses. " For the earth 
which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon 
it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by 
whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God. 
But that which beareth thorns and briers is re- 
jected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is 
to be burned." 1 The rain that cometh oft upon 
the earth, denotes that the Divine visitation is 
frequently renewed to the soul of man; and 
the earth which drinketh it up, and bringeth 
forth herbs, the soul that affectionately receives, 
and faithfully retains it, so as to bring forth the 
fruits of the spirit, whereby it inherits the bless- 
ing of God's salvation. By the earth, tvhich 
beareth thorns and briers, is pointed out the soul 
that so repeatedly continues to resist, and back- 

1 Heb, vi. 7 and 8, 



168 

slide from the Divine visitor, as to bring forth, 
and abide in, wicked works, which occasions 
him to reject and forsake it; the consequence 
whereof must be its final condemnation and de- 
struction. 

This portion of scripture thus demonstrates, 
both the certainty of a day of Divine visitation 
to the souls of men, and the possibility of its 
being discontinued, whilst they remain in the 
body. 









169 



CHAP. XV. 

L. The essential Gospel. 2. Christ the light and 
life of Men before his Incarnation. These terms 
not to be confined to his corporeal appearance 
upon earth. 3. Nor to the Scriptures. What 
their proper use is. 4 and 5. Of Christ, the word. 
6. A material difference between light afforded in 
order to Salvation, and a real embracing of it so 
as to be saved by it. Christ as truly the light of 
the souls of Men, as the Sun is to their bodies, 
whether they keep their eyes open to it, or shut 
them against it. 7. Christ as the Divine word, 
the creating, upholding, and saving power of God 
to mankind; the elect, the gracious administrator 
of life and salvation, through his external sacrifice, 
and by the communication of his spirit. The true 
sense of unlearned writers, not to be ascertained 
by the rules of grammar, or criticism. 8. The 
kingdom of God is within, Luke, xviL The true 
Christian is the Temple of Christ, wherein he 
manifests himself by his spirit. 9. What the king- 
dom of God is. 

1. Without troubling myself with the unne- 
cessary pedantry of etymologies, I shall say, 
we allow the word gospel, in an extended sense, 
may include both the mystery and the history, 
the inward and outward process of our Saviour; 
for the gospel comes not in word only, but also 
in power, and in the Holy Ghost. 1 We believe 
this power of the Holy Ghost to be the internal 
essential part, and the words the exterior, de- 
clarative, and occasional expression of it. We 
admit the history, metonymically to a share in 

1 1 Thes. i. 5. 
P 



170 

the title, but not to engross it ; lest the power, 
which is the life and reality of it, should be ex- 
cluded, and people be deceived into a belief, 
that the gospel essentially consists of nothing 
but words. 

We are far from denying, that Paul, Peter, 
or any other true minister or messenger of Christ, 
preached the gospel, when, by inspiration, they 
preached concerning the historical process of 
Christ ; but we cannot allow, that this compre- 
hends the whole of the gospel they preached. 
For we read in their writings, that the gospel 
is the power of God unto salvation, and that 
it shines as a light in the heart, to give the 
knowledge of the glory of God. 1 The doctrines 
of the gospel, are also called the gospel, and the 
preaching of them, is termed preaching the gospel, 
but it is evident, neither the history nor the doc- 
trines, are the essential gospel intended in Gal. i. 
For, we find, after the apostle had said, " If 
any man preach any other gospel unto you than 
that ye have received, let him be accursed," 8 he 
shews what he meant by the gospel they had 
received, in 11, 12, 15, and 16th verses. " I 
certify you brethren, that the gospel which was 
preached of me, is not after man. For, I net- 
ther received it of man, neither was I taught 
it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." — 
But when it pleased God, who separated me 
from my mother's womb, and called by his 
grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might 
preach among the heathen, immediately, I con- 
ferred not with flesh and blood." The gospel 

1 2 Cor. 4. 6. *Gal.i. 9. 



171 

here in tended/ is plainly, the immediate revela- 
tion of the Son of God within him, and neither 
an historical nor doctrinal relation of things 
without him. It is against the oppugners of this 
internal essential gospel which is not of man, 
nor by man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ 
within man, that the apostle twice pronounces, 
anathema. 

In demonstration of this gospel spirit and, 
power, 1 Paul preached, that the faith of his hear- 
ers might be fixed in this power of God, and 
not in the private interpretations of mens' wis- 
dom. His fellow-labourers preached under the 
influence of the same divine power, which prick- 
ed their hearers in their heart f and so must all 
that ever truly preach the gospel. The apostle 
declares, he would know not the speech of them 
that are puffed up, but the power. For the 
kingdom of God is not in word but in power. , 3 
This everlasting power is the spirit of the gos- 
pel, wherein it mainly and most essentially con- 
sists ; as the essentiality of the man doth of the 
rational soul ; and the words and matters preach- 
ed or written, are as the body, or present out- 
side. 2 Tim. iii. The apostle describes what 
kinds of men those would be who, " having a 
form of godliness, would deny the power ;" and 
directs " from such turn away." 

We read, % Cor. iv. 3. &c. " If our gospel 
be hid, it is hid, in eis, in them, that are lost ; in 
whom the God of this world hath blinded the 
minds of them which believe not, lest the light 
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the 

* 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5. I Acts, ii. 37. 3 J Cor. iv. 19. 20. 



172 

image of God, should shine unto them. For 
we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the 
Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus's 
sake. For God who commanded the light to 
shine out of darkness, hath sinned in our hearts, 
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory 
of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Here 
the apostle teaches, that the gospel they preach- 
ed was Christ, shewing his face, or manifesting 
himself as the image of God in their hearts ; 
and that it was only hid, or obscured in the 
minds of those, who through unbelief therein, 
or unfaithfulness thereto, were become blinded 
towards it by him who is called the God of this 
world, because he is obeyed by those who walk 
according to the course of this world. l 

2. The prophecy of the gospel-covenant declares 
** I will put my law in their inward parts, and 
write it in their hearts." — " For they shall all 
know me from the least of them, to the greatest 
of them." 2 This could not intend the know- 
ledge of Christ incarnate; for that appearance 
was too exterior, and of too short duration. Nor 
could it mean the knowledge of the scriptures ; 
for a man may know them from beginning to 
end, believe them to be true, and frame his prac- 
tice according to his apprehensions of the sense 
of them, and yet not know the Lord. The Jews 
had the law, the prophets, and the scriptures 
extant in their time ; yet the Almighty by the 
mouth of the same prophet, declares, " My peo- 
ple are foolish they have not known me." 3 Nor 
was it possible they should without divine assist- 

• RpU. ii. 2, 2 Jor. \xxi. 33, 34. 3 Jcr.iv 2 



i73 

ance ; therefore he saith, " I will give them a heart 
to know me." 1 And in Ezekiel, " A new heart 
also will I give you, and anew spirit will I pat 
within you" — " I will put my spirit within 
you." 2 Thus the true knowledge of God is 
to be received, by the internal writing of the di- 
vine word in the heart, which puts the law of 
light and life within man, and thereby lighteth 
every man coming, or that cometh into the world. 
3. To imagine the universal light and life of 
the immortal word is at all meant of the scrip- 
tures, is absurd. For it appears to have been, 
at least two thousand four hundred years after 
the creation, before any part of the scriptures 
were written ; and the several pieces that com- 
pose them were occasionally written at divers 
times, and by different penmen; taking up about 
sixteen hundred and thirty years more, from the 
publication of the first of them by Moses, to the 
last by John the Divine ; considering also, that 
the abundantly greater part of mankind in these 
latter ages, since they have appeared in Chris- 
tendom, have never yet had them; and how ma- 
ny millions therein, have been wickedly debar- 
red from the use of them in their own language, 
by an interested and designing priesthood; it 
undeniably appears, that a vast majority of man- 
kind never had the benefit of them. And, amongst 
those who are favoured with them, the variety, 
and even contrariety of opinions and practices 
which have all along subsisted, especially among 
the high pretenders to, and possessors of lite- 
rature, all contribute to demonstrate, that though 

1 Jer. xxiv. 7. 2 Ezek. xxxvi. 26,57. 



174 

the sacred records, opened by the spiritual key 
of David, are profitable and excellent above all 
other writings, yet a more adequate universal 
guide than themselves, ever hath been, and now 
is, absolutely necessary to the salvation of man- 
kind. 

4. John, i. 1. The evangelist shews first, what 
the word, Christ, was in himself, and asserts he 
was God; and next what he was in and to the 
world. First, he w as the Creator of all things; 
and second, the light of men ; and both these 
he was in the' beginning, 1 or early part of time 
to this creation, four thousand years before his 
coming in the flesh. As he then began to be 
the light of men, he hath all along continued to 
be so. As he made the sun to be the light of 
our external world, whether people keep their 
eyes open, or shut them against its shining ; so 
is he the true light of the spirit of men, whether 
they open to him, or not. This he is by the 
inward manifestation of his spirit in every man's 
conscience. " In him teas life, and the life was 
the light of men." 2 This was in the beginning, 
and hath been from the beginning. It is the one 
living eternal word, or energetic spirit, appear- 
ing in both modes, when truly believed in and 
properly received. 

5. " The light shineth in darkness, and the 
darkness comprehended it not." 3 " He was in 
the world, and the Avorld was made by him, 
and the world knew him not." I take the 
darkness to be the corrupt state of mankind, 
Gentiles as well as Jews. 

Uohn,i. 3,4. 2 Verse 4. 3 Verse 5. 



175 

6. Those who did not receive him, could ne- 
ver be born of him ; for he that is born of him, 
is both enlightened and quickened by his spirit. 
The Saviour, as the light of the world, dis- 
penseth of his light to every man that cometh 
into the world, to give him a sight of his captive 
condition ; this sight producing that godly sor- 
row which worketh repentance, 1 salvation en- 
sues. So, though the light of the Saviour 
ariseth upon all, in order that all may come 
to repentance and be saved, yet those who 
are so attached to their evil courses, that 
they love darkness rather than light, shut it out 
from them, and therefore do not come to the 
saving knowledge of him, who is the author of 
eternal salvation to all that obey him. 2 

When we speak of the light's being of a 
saving nature, we do jnot intend, that salvation 
is effected merely by light abstractively consi- 
dered, though it is the light of life. The eter- 
nal word operates both as light and as life. It 
gives true discovery and discrimination, as 
light ; and empowers to live and act suitably, 
as life. This light and life being the very na- 
ture of the Saviour, are properly said to be of 
a saving nature. Men may be so enlightened 
as to see the way of salvation, and yet refuse to 
walk in it ; yea, they may be led into the way, 
yet not abide in it. Will their refusal, or de- 
fection alter the nature of the light, or prove it 
is not saving? Would any shutting out the 
light, be a proof that it would not shine upon 
me ; or of the contrary ? Food is not such to 
him who refuses to eat it ; but is it not food in 

1 2 Cor. vii. 10. 2 Heb.y. 9. 



176 

its nature, because he refuses it? And might 
it not be food to him if he would be wise enough 
to take it ? 

7- " In the beginning was the Word." 1 This 
divine word had no beginning. It was no part 
of the creation. All created things were made 
by him, and called from inexistence into being ; 
but the Word is without beginning or end of 
days. The Word inexpressible by words, and 
incomprehensible by thoughts and imaginations. 
The orthos logos, or rigfit reason, infinite in 
wisdom, goodness and power ; from the begin- 
ning issuing forth, and acting in the work of 
creation and providence, and also from the time 
of the fall, in mediation and regeneration. 

As man was the only part of this lower crea- 
tion designed for immortality, the favours he 
then received were answerable to the high pur- 
pose of his Maker in creating him. The cre- 
ating and conserving word, immediately became 
his illuminator, and quickener. " All things 
were made by him, and without him was not 
any thing made that was made. In him was 
life, and the life was the light of men." 2 

After man's transgression, and defection from 
this divine light and life, this gracious Word 
astonishingly condescended to offer himself to 
repair the breach; by determining, in due time, 
to take the nature of man upon him, and to 
give it up to excruciating pains and the death 
of the cross, as a propitiation for the sins of the 
whole world. Hereby he sheweth the great- 
ness of divine love and mercy to poor helpless 
man, and also, by then immediately renewing* 

s John,i.l. -Verse 3, 4. 






177 

£nd thence -forward continuing, to afford a 
manifestation of his light to man in his fallen 
estate. For, before his incarnation, " He was 
in the world, and the world was made by him, 
abd the world knew him not." 1 The gene- 
rality, though they felt his inward convictions, 
the reproofs of instruction, they distinguished 
them not to be his, but might flatter themselves, 
they were only the effects of tradition early in- 
stilled into their minds ; and not having their 
habitation in the light, were become as dark- 
ness ; yet the light shined in their darkness,, 
though their darkness comprehended it not. 2 
They thought too meanly of this light, had no just 
conception of it, knew it not to be the visitation 
of the Son of God ; and though they were his 
own, Gentiles as well as Jews, by creation, and 
intentional redemption, they received him not. 
" But as many as received him, to them gave he 
power to become the sons of God." 3 

The evangelist having spoken of him as the 
universal, illuminating, effective Word, verse 14* 
he comes to speak of his incarnation, saying, 
" And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us." We are not here to understand, 
that the sovereign word, or spirit, was transub- 
stantiated into flesh; but that for man's redemp- 
tion, he took the nature of man upon him, and 
appeared amongst men, as a man, and undoubt- 
edly in the eyes of most, seemed not more than 
man ; but saith his enlightened follower; " and 
ice beheld his glory, had a sense of his divinity, 
as well as a sight of his humanity^ " the glory 
as of the only begotten of the Father," the only 
1 John, i. 10. 2 y erse 5# 3 y erse 11, IS. 



178 

one of his own essence and eternity, "full of 
grace and truth— and of Ms fulness have all we 
received , and grace for grace. 1 

When persons read, and presume to expound, 
the scriptures with school and college- methods 
uppermost in their heads, it is no wonder they 
mistake them. The inspired writers observed 
no such rules, even those of them who might 
have a competent share of literature; which 
most of them had not. Learned, or unlearned, 
the light and motion of the Holy Spirit was 
their guide ; not the rules of rhetoric, logic, or 
grammar. Not school-learning, but the light 
of the Holy Ghost gave them a right under- 
standing, and the same is requisite to the right 
understanding of their writings. They spake 
not the wisdom of this world; 2 therefore are not 
to be understood by its wisdom, yet nothing is 
more busy to explain them. They often treat 
of things promiscuously ; even as our Saviour 
himself spoke, intermixing the internal spiritual 
sense with the external, both respecting him- 
self 3 and the matters he touched upon. This 
John doth in his first chapter, sometimes 
speaking of Christ as the Word, which respects 
his divinity, sometimes as man, or as in the flesh, 
and sometimes "comprehending both senses in 
the same words. For want of a right under- 
standing properly to distinguish them, men are 
apt to jumble, and mistake one for another. 
Hence arise disagreement, clashing, and jang- 
ling about the true sense of scripture; and 
trying it by the notions of systems they have 
espoused, instead of trying them by the truth, it 

UolmJ. 16. 2 lCor, ii.6. 



179 

is no wonder there is so much controversy. 
The only way to put an end to it, is for all to 
come to the spirit of truth in their own hearts, 
that they may he led into all truth ; which till 
they do, they never can be. 

8. " The kingdom of God cometh not with 
observation, neither shall they say, lo here, or 
lo there; for behold the kingdom of God is 
within you." Christ appears by his spirit in 
the minds of all, either as a comforter, a puri- 
fier, or a convictor and reprover, in order that 
they might believe in, and obey him under this 
appearance, through which they would find him 
to become the hope of glory in them. 

In matters of such high concern as relate to 
our eternal state, it is incumbent upon all, to be 
more cautious than confident about the exclusion 
of their fellow -creatures from the grace and 
salvation of God ; lest by asserting the non- 
existence of that experience in others them- 
selves have not yet known, they become of those 
to whom our Saviour declares, « Ye shut up the 
kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither 
go in yourselves, neither sufFer ye them that 
are entering, to go in." * 

9. If any ask, what is the kingdom of hea- 
ven, or of God ? I answer ; notwithstanding he 
is the Almighty Sovereign of the universe, yet 
that is more peculiarly stiled his kingdom, 
wherein he so completely governs as to be always 
cheerfully and perfectly obeyed ; where he is 
the sole mover of all that is done, where he is 
glorified in all that is done, and where he com- 
municates of his glory and felicity without mix- 

^afcxxiii. 13. 










180 

ture. This kingdom can neither be entem 
nor at all seen into by man, but through tl» 
new-birth of the Holy Spirit, whereby the soi 
experienceth a being born into it ; a being del 
veredfrom the power of darkness, and tram 
lated into the kingdom of the dear Son of God 
Hereby alone the spirit of man enters it ; an 
through faithfulness, is enabled to make a* 
vances therein whilst in the body. This kin; 
dom stands not in locality, not in any here < 
there : therefore it is in vain to direct to it b 
lo here or lo there. It stands in an infinite at 
heavenly spirit, life, and nature, wherein n< 
thing impure can live or enter. It is the inte 
nal dominion, or ruling power of the Holy Gho> 
in men and angels ; that pure influence so beau 
tifully and sublimely described in Wisdom, vii 
flowing from the glory of the Almighty, whir, 
in all ages entering into holy souls, maketh 
them friends of God and prophets. In fine, 
this kingdom of God is the dominion of the 
light and life of the spirit of God. Whoever 
lives under the sensible influence and govern- 
ment of it, lives in this kingdom. This is the 
kingdom of the saints militant on earth, and of 
the saints triumphant in heaven ; it being ex- 
perienced by the sanctified in Christ Jesus, in 
part whilst in this world, and enjoyed in its ful- 
ness in the world to come. 

I shall now r close, sincerely wishing that all 
men may come really to know the only true God, 
and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, that they 
may experience life eternal. 

1 John, iii. Col.i. 13. 

THE END. 



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